


The Haunting of Samaritan

by HippolytaGale



Category: Person Of Interest - Fandom
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, General Freakiness, Horror, Suicide, Suspense, it ends well though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-08-28 13:38:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8448055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HippolytaGale/pseuds/HippolytaGale
Summary: Professor Harold Finch opens an investigation of Samaritan House, an isolated property said to create terrifying paranormal phenomena. With him are a team of assistants: John Reese, a friend of the owner, Sameen Shaw, a gifted empath numb to her own feelings, and Root, a loner with a dark past experiencing the world for the first time. As they study the house, Samaritan's influence awakens, and as Root and Shaw's relationship deepens, the terror awaiting them only grows...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Haunting of Hill House](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/238978) by Shirley Jackson. 



> Hello! A month ago or so I read Shirley Jackson's outstanding novel "The Haunting of Hill House" and was completely smitten; as I read I couldn't help but picture Team Machine in that world, and thus this story exists. This story borrows heavily from the plot of Jackson's novel, but of course it is much, much gayer. 
> 
> The story is about 2/3 of the way done, so updates will be coming over the course of the next few weeks; I just couldn't bear waiting to post it any longer, especially since the fandom is shrinking after the show's completion and I really wanted folks to get the chance to read it. Enjoy!

Absolute reality does not occur in isolation. Existence sits between two halves of being: on one side mundane, touchable, sensible, and on the other side a kind of a dream—a possibility, wildness, lunacy, or perhaps something darker. Twins of a state of being, both tugging at the same central fulcrum. Samaritan, a house that was not sane, watched the hills surrounding the valley of its foundation with a thousand eyes and listened with a thousand ears. Despite the grandeur of its empty halls and the serenity of its lush grounds, it seemed neither of the earth nor ether; the house lay silent through eighty years, and whatever walked there, walked alone.  


Dr. Harold Finch sought to uncover the secret forces moving through Samaritan out of a vested interest in protecting the public. He was a parapsychologist, but he paid his bills teaching FORTRAN at one of the smaller private universities in upstate New York. He and his childhood friend Nathan had devoted the better part of thirty years plumbing the depths of the supernatural, and after Nathan drank away his mind to escape the horror of what they suspected, Finch continued on alone. He needed proof, and Samaritan would provide it: through careful observation and using prototypes of his own design, he would unlock its secrets.  


He would need assistants. The project would require three months of his sabbatical living at the estate, operating his equipment and journaling any unusual phenomena—not exactly reliable work for the career-oriented. A year prior to moving into the house Harold compiled a list of prominent telepaths, psychics, and gifted individuals to serve as liaisons between himself and what he suspected lurked under the surface of Samaritan; he had ninety-six names, both experts and people connected to the paranormal by the thinnest of coincidences, and winnowed out those likely to be con men and attention-seeking charlatans. He was left with seven letters to mail. Of the seven, three were returned for lack of a forwarding address; the subjects had moved on, gone without a trace. One letter was met with polite refusal. Another letter was never answered. After all of Finch’s work, only two people answered his request.  


Sameen Shaw needed out. Three months at a new secret federal agency called COINTELPRO had left her bitter and eager to move on. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. The agency tapped her for an interview after she was discharged from the MCWR; she won the new job by correctly identifying the symbols on a deck of Zener cards twenty-one times out of twenty-five while blindfolded. That made her special, they said; invaluable. She could sense what others couldn’t. This had been a mixed blessing for her in medicine, but at the agency, it would be vital. They had promised her a field position, the first of its kind for a woman, promised her a duty as a shield and sword against terrorists and enemies of the state. Instead, she was poked and prodded by silent doctors once a week, acquired and processed paperwork that detailed every covert undermining of labor unions and left-wing activists, and shot at the practice range next to operatives who murdered civil rights leaders for the audacity of inspiring people to stand up to injustice. If she were capable of any kind of deep feeling, she might have felt it was unbearable. Anger at the indecency of it all growled low in her stomach, so when she got Finch’s letter inviting her to Samaritan, she resigned without a second thought and covered her tracks. Shaw would figure out what to do next when the fall was over.  


Samantha Groves also wanted to escape. Nearing thirty years old, she had yet to fully live a life of her own: her mother had stunted it in the beginning, first with her controlling, drunken parenting of Sam’s childhood, then with the wheezing away of a slow, ugly decline from paralysis. She had need of a caretaker then, and the options were few. Samantha lost eleven years to that woman, always crying in the night for painkillers and suffocating her daughter’s future. Samantha fled into books and let her curiosity fight off her rage as best it could, but it was not her quick wit nor intellectual prowess that caught Harold Finch’s attention many years later. When she was twelve years old, there was an incident that involved Barbara Russell, a neighbor that lived a few houses down from the Groves. On a clear October day in 1926, a shower of boulders dropped from the sky for seventeen terrifying minutes. Russell’s home was completely destroyed. No other house had been touched.  


When Samantha Groves’ mother died, medical debts rolled in, and Root (or so she preferred to call herself) didn’t debate whether to spend another eight years learning odd skills and working the yoke of owed money from her neck or flee. The day she received a notice of repossession on the house, Finch’s letter arrived the next morning—a divine signal. She piled her books in the center of the kitchen and doused them with whisky, then touched a lit book of matches to the pile and let tongues of flame lick up the cabinets and dance across the corners of the ceiling. Never again, she thought. No more sitting out. She left the blazing house and got into her mother’s old Chevrolet Clipper, a cardboard box on the seat next to her, a meagre collection of essentials. Root revved the engine and never looked back.  


Finch had his two assistants, but there was one more person coming to join them that summer. His name was John Reese, and he was a friend of the current owner of the home. Harold hadn’t asked for him to journey to Samaritan, but Zoe Morgan insisted; it was her property for the time being, she told him, and she would not allow any major harm to come to it while it was still on the market. Finch had no choice but to concede to her demand. She didn’t tell Harold the other reason for John’s presence.  


The experiment started on the afternoon of October 12th, 1957 and went on for four days. The nightmares from it lasted far longer.


	2. Day/Night 1

Shaw drove up a mile of dirt road pocked with holes and dotted with stones, her car groaning and scraping against debris as it passed over. The altitude of the hills grew with each passing moment, and she was struck by how odd it seemed to build a house in the valley of the surrounding bluffs rather than on a hilltop; the countryside seemed to close in on her as she drove up the road.  


She was met with a black steel gate wrapped in chains and a padlock. A high brick wall perhaps twenty feet tall connected to either ends of the gate, vanishing into the woods and shadows; she wondered about how large the grounds were and the cost of encompassing such a space before an old man tottered into her vision on the other side of the gate. He sniffed, a thick phlegmy sound vibrating through his sinuses.

“What do you want?” He asked with an elegant, unexpected British lilt. 

“I’m here for Dr. Finch,” She said. “He said the gate would be open.” The man smiled, his canines yellow against his pale lips. 

“Well, it is not.” He shuffled to the gate, his long, pale fingers wrapped bony around its steel ribs. 

“I’m Sameen Shaw. I’m expected.” 

“No one is here to expect you,” He leered. “You’re the first one to arrive.”

Shaw could sense the weight of his emotions even if she could not directly experience them; his aura beamed a cold clamminess through her as he watched, sending a powerful wave of nausea shimmering under her skin. Her hands balled into fists.

“Open the door,” She said, her jaw too tight for such a minor conversation.

“Are you sure you want to go in, Miss Shaw? Samaritan is no ordinary home. The locals believe it to be haunted.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. Are you letting me in, or not?” 

“Of course, Miss,” He gave her a tepid smile and reached around to undo the padlock and chain. “No need to be impatient. Go on ahead; I will meet you in the foyer presently.”

She returned to her car and drove it through the open gate, hands knuckle-white around the steering wheel. The man bothered her. His aura did, at least; most people didn’t feel like that. Shaw had been exposed to many people over the course of her medical studies, and when her patients were upset, or even when they were in great pain, she had never sensed such strange energy. Sensing ordinary peoples’ emotions felt like slipping into a bathtub filled with water that was a touch too cold—jarring and uncomfortable for the moments it had to be endured, but never harsh like that, like the second before throwing up. The man at the gate had felt like frigid oil inside, like a spike pricking into her gut. It felt diseased.

She gritted her teeth in the rearview mirror, snarling at herself to shake it off and relax. The road crested over the hills, then descended down into the valley below.

Samaritan House sat in the heart of that valley, hidden in the trees until the last shallow curve in the road brought it into view. It was a towering Victorian mansion, with a rolling green lawn that spread several hundred feet in every direction. The old stonework had lost its sharper edges to time, and ivy crawled along windowsills and cornices, but it stood bleak against the bright sunshine. Shaw parked the car and found Greer waiting in the foyer, the lines of his face seeming deeper in the weaker light. In his presence she found herself nauseous again. He extended a hand.

“Your bags.”

She hesitated, not knowing why. Glancing around, the room felt off. It wasn’t the strange quiet, though no birds sang and the wind outside was silent. Perhaps it was the coffered ceiling’s dark woodwork, or the dizzying geometries of the parquet floor. She couldn’t place it yet, but she let Greer take her suitcases and followed him up the stairs. 

“The house’s second floor is simple. It forms an L from the stairs,” Greer explained. “Three rooms on one side, three rooms on the other. Do you have a preference for color?” 

“What?”

“The rooms are different colors, Miss.” He gestured to one side of the hall, then the other. “Blue, green, and the last is a bathroom—this side is yellow, purple, white. The white room is quite cold, I’m afraid.”

Shaw opened the nearest door. It was heavier than she expected, thick. “Here,” She said. Greer set the bags inside the door of the blue room. He straightened.

“Breakfast is served at seven. I clear by nine. Lunch comes at noon, with dinner at five. Leave the dishes on the table; I will clear them the next morning. I do not stay on the property past 5:15. Upon leaving, I will not return to the property until dawn. No one will.” He checked his watch, then brushed past her, his feet soundless on the carpet. She sighed to the empty hall.

“Great.” 

Shaw stepped into the blue room and let go of the doorknob. The door swooshed shut, its weight the only help needed to get it to close behind her. The room’s large leaded-glass window cut the daylight into shapes on the floor, though the room still seemed shadowy, and the colors were overwhelming. Golden vine patterns curled along navy wallpaper. The curtains, chaise, and rug were all varying patterns of white and navy, with gold accents here and there for variety. The patterns hurt her eyes with their clashing against one another—chevrons with Moroccan designs, circles with squares. The only comfort was the clean, solid white of the bedspread and the four poster’s sheer curtains. 

She threw her suitcases on the chaise lounge and opened the door to a bathroom; it was connected to the next room as well, though the other door was locked currently. The feeling of Greer’s diseased aura coated her like a newborn’s caul, suffocating and repulsive. Shaw splashed some water on her face, and as she did so the gross echo of Greer’s presence lifted from her skin. She heard the front door open and slam downstairs. Surprised, she scrubbed her face on a towel and strode into the hallway.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” A voice called below. It was high and pleasant, a woman’s. 

When Shaw reached the stairs and looked over the railing, she saw her down in the foyer. The woman was tall and slender, with long, wavy brown hair spilling over her shoulders in warm ripples. She clutched a large yellow suitcase in one hand, her other fingertips grazing the fine skin at the hollow of her throat. 

“Hey,” Shaw replied. The woman looked up. 

She had bright, soft eyes the same color as her hair. Delicate features, somehow young and wise at once—her cheekbones seemed as sharp and exquisite as porcelain, her mouth small and pink. Her lips parted and she cracked a wide, happy grin, and in that moment Shaw was buffeted by an intense emotion: complete ease. No one was ever like that; it was a strange sensation, an untethered lightness of being. She gripped the bannister and swallowed. 

“Are you here for the study?” The woman asked. Shaw nodded. The woman climbed the stairs, both hands on the handle of her luggage to haul it over the steps. When she reached the landing, she set her suitcase down and offered her hand.

“I’m Root,” She said. “And what’s your name?”

There was that smile again, and the strange feeling flushing through Shaw’s chest. Shaw took her hand—it was cool and smooth, so unlike her own. _I want to keep like this,_ she thought for a bizarre moment. _I want this moment to stay._

“Sameen. Sameen Shaw.” Her mouth felt dumb, unable to form proper shapes. She didn’t think to ask _Root? What kind of name is Root?_ She didn’t know what to say next either. It was as though she had been balancing on a beam and just lost her footing.

“Which one is yours?” Root asked, nodding to the hallway. Shaw reached back and touched her door. Her new acquaintance chose the room beside it, the green room, and gestured for Shaw to follow. 

The green room was just as overwhelming as her own, emerald and gold and white splashed about the walls and furniture. Root chucked her suitcase onto the bed, then turned and inspected the room.

“Strange interior decorating, isn’t it?”

“A funeral parlor meets the Emerald City.”

“I don’t know, the art’s a nice touch, don’t you think?” She gestured to a nearby portrait: it featured a deer being torn apart by hounds, entrails dangling and blood spritzing across the snow. “Warm and fuzzy.”

Shaw gave a low, dark snicker. _Good,_ she thought. _She has a sense of humor._

“Are you the only one here?” Root asked.

“Yeah.”

“I had a strange feeling when I drove in,” She said. “Like when someone watches you from a window. It’s the hills, I think: they make you feel small.” She paused. “It gives me the creeps. You?”

Shaw shook her head. “I’m not scared.”

Root fixed her gaze on her, and while most people looked away quickly if Shaw stared back, Root did not. She watched her for a few long seconds, the corner of her lip quirking into a smile. Shaw wondered what Root could possibly be amused about. She looked like the kind of woman that hid knives in her grin. The kind of woman that knew everyone’s secrets. 

“Care to look around?” Root asked. 

  


Sameen was quite cautious, Root thought. Watchful. And very pretty. 

They walked through each of the long halls downstairs, both women needing to push open the thick doors that separated each room. They tried to prop one ajar with a heavy chair, but the servant (Mr. Greer, Sameen told her) brushed it aside and let the door swing shut behind them with a slam.

“What’s his deal?” Shaw muttered.

“Oh, you know how caretakers can be. I imagine you lose patience with interlopers around the time you hit eight hundred years in age,” She said, rolling her eyes. “Not a thing can be out of place.” 

There were several parlors and libraries, music rooms and offices. Samaritan seemed to have entirely too many rooms and too many halls; each area had several exits to different hallways, as though the rooms were built with escape in mind. What were the builders thinking of escaping, Root wondered. Why would they need three exits in every room? The women went through another door, which they thought would bring them back into the foyer. Instead, they entered a mudroom; French doors overlooked a set of stairs leading to a path through the lawn. Sameen looked back.

“Did we get turned around?” She asked.

“Hmm. Must have.” Root opened the doors to the outdoors, letting in the smell of cut grass. “But I think we could do with a detour, don’t you?”

The hedgerow maze behind the mansion and the garden surrounding it was daunting, so they looked for a creek nearby. They followed the smell of the water and its babbling conversation, crossing the lawn and entering the woods that surrounded the house, each of them watching their steps to avoid snagging their clothes on brambles or tripping over fallen branches. 

Root took her companion’s arm as they walked down to the brook. Her bicep was firm like a snake poised to attack—Sameen seemed like that all over, steely and supple. It was unexpected and alluring. For a moment she thought Shaw would shake her off; the other woman didn’t seem quite comfortable with her touch, judging by the way her hand clenched and unclenched slowly inside her jacket pocket. But Shaw seemed to understand that the ground was treacherous. In fact, as they traveled the last few feet down to the bank, Sameen even wrapped an arm around Root’s waist to help steady her on the slick grass as she slid down to the ground. Root liked that. It was chivalrous. 

They looked at the water for a while. Root wondered aloud bits of small thoughts; how far the stream went and if large fish lived in it. She stepped out of one shoe and dipped her big toe into the water, sock and all. The cold made her flinch and laugh breathlessly, and she looked over her shoulder. Shaw was staring at her again, her brows furrowed.

“Like what you see?” Root joked.

“What’s different about you?” 

“What do you mean?”

Root thought Sameen’s eyes were beautiful; they were so dark they looked black and bottomless.

“Forget it.” She looked away. “Doesn’t matter.”

Root slipped her shoe back on and sat down on the uneven ground, patting the space next to her in an invitation. After a few moments, Shaw sat down a few inches away, her legs crossed under her and posture ramrod straight. 

She reminded Root of the ranchers’ horses she watched as a child in Texas, but not those that belonged to the boss; those were elegant beasts, but their riders took great pleasure in breaking them, of whacking them with switches and yelling until the veins in their foreheads bulged. The boss’s horses had a fear of his men that strangled their beauty. No, Shaw reminded her of the horse that belonged to Mr. Lexington, the Negro that swamped out the stables. 

He moved slowly and spoke in low voices, and when he let the silence sit comforting around the animal’s shoulders, the horse allowed his touch. The rest was the finding of boundaries, of listening and testing and prodding, of learning what the horse would allow and what he would not. Mr. Lexington rode him, but it was the horse’s choice. The creature never lost his fierceness or his pride—she had watched him tear loose of a fence once when a less worthy man tried to saddle him, the rail broken clean from its posts with one clean jerk, dragging behind him as he galloped into the field. It was a wild, gorgeous sight.

Shaw was like that horse, Root decided, and she wanted to earn her trust very badly. In the hour of their wanderings, the idea of being Shaw’s friend had become innately important and necessary, like a law of physics. Root felt its compulsion as if it were a part of her nature, and she obeyed it. She would listen and watch. She would find out what Shaw liked, and do it. So with that in mind, she did not fill up the silence with an overabundance of conversation, simply listened to the breeze and stole glances of her, wanting more between them even so soon, even though they had just met.

As the minutes continued to tick by, Sameen’s posture softened, and as the sun began to set in the west, Root dared to speak.

“This might be the one spot on the whole estate so far that doesn’t seem in the least bit sinister.”

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“It would be perfect for a picnic. We should bring a basket out later.” 

Shaw gave the barest indication of a nod. A small victory, Root thought, and warmed at the thought of it.

“Do you know why Dr. Finch asked you to come?” Shaw asked. Root shrugged.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but I didn’t care. I got a letter in the mail, and I wanted to get out of my hometown. Go see the world, that sort of thing. You?”

“Let’s just say Harold needed my abilities and I needed a career change. Free room and board for a few months sounded like a good deal.”

An opportunist. Root liked that too.

“Was your employment not to your taste?” 

Shaw frowned. “It wasn’t the work I thought I’d be doing. And it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

“Good thing you left then. My mother always said you should follow your talents.”

“My kinds of expertise aren’t transferable among fields.”

Oooh, _that_ was interesting. Sameen was revealing herself to be more mysterious by the second. Such a strange thing, a woman of her kind: strong despite her short stature, a master of unusual skills, involved in unmentionable work, and judging from the flash of nickel Root spotted under Shaw’s open jacket as the other woman ran a hand through her hair, packing a good-sized firearm. Curiouser and curiouser. 

“So, what nasty little games do you think happened here?” Root asked. “Child torture? Cannibalism?”

“My bet’s on good old fashioned murder. Nothing screams the paranormal like murder. And if Finch is right and there are spirits here, they’re going to want to cut us down to size.”

“Well, you can’t spell funeral without fun.” Shaw gave her a tired glare for that. 

“Seriously?”

She was comically grumpy, but Root enjoyed that. She surged forward and planted a kiss on Shaw’s cheek, testing a boundary; Sameen reared back, her eyes wide in surprise for about a fourth of a second, and then they narrowed in intense annoyance. She smudged the kiss away with the corner of her sleeve, disgusted. It was adorable.

“What the hell was that for?” She snapped.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help it.” Root said. “I had to turn that frown upside down.” She rose to her feet. “Back to the house then? The party’s just starting.”

Shaw grumbled under her breath, but she followed Root just the same, and Root felt her eyes on her neck as she led the other woman back the way they came. Root had a spring in her step; she was happy to be at Samaritan to begin with, but to be there with such a delightful person was icing on top of an already-delicious cake. It was impossible not to like Sameen. She turned and began to walk backwards, catching Shaw in the act of touching the spot on her cheek where Root had kissed—she stuffed her hand into her pocket, but it was too late to miss. Root grinned.

“You’ll see, Sameen. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

  


As they returned to the house a tall, handsome man caught sight of them from the veranda and raised a hand in greeting. 

“Good evening!” Root called. “Are you Dr. Finch?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, ladies. John Reese.” His voice was raspy like a weathered stone, but steady. He had a calmness to him that reminded Shaw of herself when she was alone. 

“Dr. Finch is inside.” He said. “Would you join us?” 

The four of them stood together inside the foyer of Samaritan for the first time, examining each other: Dr. Finch was a short man in tweed, a fashionable pair of glasses perched on his nose. As he hung his suit jacket on a nearby hook, Shaw noticed a distinct limp; a spinal injury, perhaps? 

“I am happy to see that you have all arrived safely,” Finch began. “We have a long journey ahead of us. If my understanding of this house and its phenomena are correct, we will experience many supernatural occurrences during our time here, and I believe it is important that we take the time to get to know each other well; perhaps over dinner?” 

He offered an arm to Root, who took it happily. Reese stood next to Shaw, as if he planned to do the same courtesy. She walked ahead.

“Thanks. I’ll pass.” She said.

The doctor led the way into the dining room, where a hearty spread of roast and various side dishes was laid out on china. They ate over small talk; weather and trivia about the tiny town nearby. Finch waited until the plates were empty and gathered in a pile onto the sideboard before suggesting they speak about the house, and it was only after they had moved to the parlor and he had a strong drink in his hand did they begin to speak in earnest.

The parlor was like the rest of Samaritan: it made Shaw uneasy. The room was wallpapered in a nauseating shade of mustard, and the weight of the dark woodwork pressed down on them as they found places to lounge. The sofa where she chose seemed just a bit too small for two people to sit comfortably; her thigh was flush with John’s, although he did not seem bothered in the slightest. A few books on shelves were individually bound in fabric to protect them from dust and humidity, but while looking at them Shaw was reminded of funeral shrouds, and she grimaced. The large marble fireplace in the room was cold even with the fire John started, though none of them seemed to mind; Finch sat as solid as a statue on the edge of his seat, his drink perched on his knee, and Root relaxed cat-like in the other chair, her legs draped over one arm. Reese was quiet and unmoving, watching every stray gesture and fidget. Shaw wondered if he had been in the military too. Finch took another sip of his drink.

“I won’t lie to you,” He said. “This house has a dark history. I’m not entirely sure what we will find during our studies here. If you wish to leave after our conversation I will understand, but you will have to wait until morning. The gates are locked, and the last time someone tried to leave at night, the man’s horse stumbled in the road and broke his neck. Samaritan, it seems, prefers for its guests to remain.”

“I love a good ghost story, Harry.” Root said.

“Hardly good, Miss Groves; indeed, the very nature of this study is to expose and understand the house’s spiritual atmosphere to better protect those who may be afflicted by negative energies similar to those allegedly in this house.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Reese asked. Finch looked at each of them in turn.

“You are my assistants in more ways than one. You will, of course, take extensive notes on any supernatural incidents as they occur, and you will help operate my equipment.”

“Like that big thing I pushed in earlier?”

“Yes, Mr. Reese, the device on the dolly. It’s an experimental instrument, a machine of my own design. Think of it as a computerized planchette; it may be able to pick up signals above our own awareness once I’ve finished its programming.”

“You program computers?” Root leaned in, interested. “I’ve always wanted to learn more about that.” Finch quirked his eyebrows.

“Perhaps I’ll teach you to code if we have time.” 

She smiled. “I would like that.”

Harold continued. “But other than your clerical skills, I have recruited most of you for the primary reason that you are necessary to provide the greatest chance of experiencing strong paranormal activity.”

“What do you mean?” Shaw asked.

“Both Miss Groves and yourself possess forms of extrasensory perception, a sixth sense, if you will. Psychometry, apportation, remote viewing, empathy: these traits will be useful to the investigation in the sense that they will allow us to sense more than we would with technology alone. But more importantly, your presence serves to activate whatever dormant forces may be at work here.”

“Wait,” Root interrupted. “What? Extrasensory perception? I don’t follow.”

“The stones, Miss Groves. The stones in Bishop.”

Shaw had no idea what that meant, but she did watch with interest as Root stiffened in her seat. The bright gleam in her eyes was gone, replaced with a low wariness. 

“In any case,” Harold continued. “You and Miss Shaw will awaken whatever lurks here. I can only hope that when the phenomena begin, we will be safe. It is important that we stick together as much as possible once the house becomes active, especially at night.”

“Why? What’s happened here?”

“Sickness and death, Mr. Reese.” He said darkly. “And a long history of it.”

Finch explained that he had learned of Samaritan over a year ago from Zoe Morgan, a mutual friend of both his and John’s. She had bought the house for a tiny sum, intent on renting it out to families who wished to spend summers away from the hustle and bustle of New York City. When she purchased it, Zoe suspected there might have been some hidden structural issues with the mansion, or that its low price was simply the result of a buyer’s market. She had it inspected, but her engineers reported the estate was in near-perfect condition, so she set about modernizing its essentials: a telephone line was added, and the plumbing updated, and old wiring replaced where needed. The process was without serious problems, though a few laborers were injured, as is always the case with home renovations. All was well.

But when renters moved in, they rarely stayed more than a few days. Six was the longest record so far. The tenants gave logical reasons for leaving (family emergencies, stock market crises, funerals of dear relatives, the lot), but when pressed by Zoe most were emphatically against speaking on the matter. Some people even forfeited their entire summer leases, which was profitable for Zoe, but problematic in her mind, since their rush to leave was troubling. So Zoe contacted Finch, and he began to investigate the house’s history. Finch pieced together what he could from newspapers and short interviews with the townspeople in the nearby village—the local stories were short and came back to a common point: Avoid Samaritan at any cost. Don’t let it see you.

A railroad tycoon named Arthur Claypool built Samaritan in 1877, and from the moment the last brick was set the house was a setting for tragedy. Claypool had built the home as a gift for his wife, Diane, but she had little time to enjoy it; while giving birth to their third child, she died in labor along with the baby, leaving Claypool alone with two young girls to raise on his own. He had been an absent father for most of the girls’ lives; railroading was an industry for hard men, and Claypool had been away securing the family fortune for the last year. Diane had died just as the family had come together again, and after her funeral her husband had to figure out how to be a father on his own.

“Two girls without a mom and a clueless dad.” John said. “That’s tough.”

It was insurmountable. Claypool still had a business to run, and he couldn’t keep a nanny for the girls despite the handsome salary he offered; Finch interviewed a man in town whose grandmother had been friends with a girl who had worked at the house for a time. According to the man’s story, after Diane passed there were strange plinking sounds at night, as though fingers drummed on the pipes within the walls. The girl heard footfalls when no one was upstairs, and quit after she checked the strange stain on her apron one morning and found a bird carcass turned inside out in the pocket. It could have been the work of the oldest child--she was known to have a particularly cruel streak towards animals, and she was a sullen, angry girl. 

In any case, Claypool could not convince any other town girl to nanny his children. Dementia had started to creep into his mind, although he was relatively young for it, and Claypool needed to secure his family’s future. Faced with few options, he sent the oldest daughter to boarding school, and took his younger daughter with him on his business travels. The house was left empty other than the staff which dusted and swept twice weekly for eight years, and at that point, the youngest daughter returned to look after the property.

“What happened to the other sister?” Root asked.

“She acquired a husband of some small industry. When Claypool died in 1889 she returned to Samaritan to discuss selling the estate with her younger sister. They stayed in a protracted legal battle for months.”

“Why?”

“Theodora, the oldest sister, wished to have the property destroyed and the land sold. The other sister, Eleanor, considered Samaritan to be her home, and attempted to acquire Theodora’s half of the will.”

“You’d think there would be plenty of money to go around,” Shaw said. 

“Money was not the issue, at least not for Eleanor. It was a more personal matter.”

“Oh?”

“Eleanor had never married. She had no interest in it. Alone she had ample funds to live as she wished, but she was concerned for the welfare of a female companion that had lived with her at Samaritan for the previous few years. Theodora found the arrangement scandalous, and thus Eleanor believed the only way to provide for her companion’s good fortune was to take Theodora’s inheritance by legal wrangling.”

“And did it work?”

Harold cleared his throat. “After a fashion. Before the court could make a decision, Theodora died in an automobile accident on the property—she crashed into the large oak tree near the top of the hill. The impact crushed her side of the vehicle, killing her instantly. Her husband was with her in the car, and the wreckage was inspected and cleared for any tampering, so it appeared to be complete happenstance.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“The timing’s too good, Harold.” Reese added.

“So it would appear.” Finch continued. “The husband dropped the suit and fled west. The women lived here together until Eleanor reached her fifties. After that she experienced a series of strokes, which led to the development of seizures and her eventual death.”

“What happened to her companion?” Root asked.

“Ah, well, she was named heir to Claypool’s fortune. For some time she was under scrutiny from the townspeople—they believed she had orchestrated Theodora’s death somehow, or that she had poisoned Eleanor to make it appear that she was not well. Complete nonsense, of course. I have no doubt that it was her relationship with Eleanor that earned the town’s scorn, not any suspicious actions on her own part.”

“So she was named heir, and that was it?”

“Oh no, Miss Groves. She died a few weeks later; hung herself in the library, just there.” He pointed across the hall to a lacquered door. “It may have been depression. But I believe that whatever bond she had with Eleanor, it shielded both of them from the more sinister attributes of the house. Once Eleanor was gone, her companion succumbed to Samaritan’s influence. That’s why it is imperative that we be very cautious.”

He sipped the last of his drink down, and the group was quiet. As they thought about their situation in silence, a gentle patter sounded against the windows. Root glanced over and rose to her feet, walking over and putting her hand on the glass.

“Oh, it’s raining.” A crack of thunder sounded in the distance. John stood as well, rebuttoning his suit jacket. 

“It’s getting late.” He added. “We should sleep. Get ready for tomorrow.”

“Indeed, Mr. Reese. I would like to give you all a tour in the morning, and then the first order of business should be nailing open a few of the main doors in the halls. We’ll need all hands to move the Machine further inside the house.” Finch set his glass down. “I will be staying up in my room for a while further; I doubt the house will be active tonight, but I intend to keep watch.”

When the four of them moved upstairs, Harold vanished into his room with a murmured “Goodnight,” and Reese touched Shaw’s shoulder as he passed by.

“Call if there’s trouble.” Reese said before closing his door. “Don’t take any chances.” His manner was oddly brotherly.

“Yeah, sure.” She answered. Root lingered by her own door, looking to the other end of the hallway.

“Sameen?”

“What?”

“…Do you think Harold’s right? Do you think the house is dangerous?”

“It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.” She said. Root frowned. “Seriously, Root, it’s probably nothing, just ghost stories and overactive imaginations. I’m going to die of boredom before any ghosts make a move. Trust me, this is going to be a breeze.”

“Maybe.” Root said, and opened her door. “Just…be careful. Better to be safe than sorry. And hey,” She added, a touch of flirtation in her smile, “If you want some company, all you have to do is ask.”

Shaw rolled her eyes and retreated inside her own room. She changed into pajamas and turned out the light, sliding into cool cotton sheets, her thoughts on the day vanishing with each deep breath she took. Like Root, she fell asleep well before the midnight hour. Reese did not sleep at first: he fiddled with his switchblade, extending it and retracting it, smoothing a cloth along the edge to polish it every so often, thinking about the house’s entrances and exits, about its many doors, about how he could keep his new friends safe. He drifted off in time. Finch, armed with a well-worn copy of Camus’s The Stranger, laid awake reading until long after the witching hour had past, and he too reclined into slumber. 

Once they were deep into their rest, no one heard it begin—sounds inside the walls, from the basement to the top floor—a soft thud, a noise like the padding of fingers on pipes, a gentle exhaling breeze floating through the halls; the house, stirred to motion, now aware of its visitors, opening its heavy-lidded eyes at last.


	3. Day/Night 2

Root slept late that morning, well past eight. The rest had been calm; she awoke in the same position she’d fallen asleep in, comfortably on her side with the blankets pulled up to her chin. She was coaxed out of her slumber by the rattling of her window. It had been closed the night before, but as she looked at it she realized the eyebolt buried in the frame had become loose (or perhaps had always been so), so the window was allowed enough space to sway back and forth in the breeze and make noise. She pulled the hook away from the eyebolt and opened the window completely, opening the top two buttons of her silk pajamas so she could feel the brisk air moving over her skin.

It really was a lovely place, Samaritan; the sun gleamed across the grass and she watched the bronzed treetops dance from stray gusts of wind. The air was fresher than in Texas, and more pleasing to her palette. In Texas Root always tasted dust or cigarette ashes on her tongue, but here she only smelled evergreens and loam, and a bit of the rain from last night. She looked out to the garden—from this height she could easily see over the hedgerow maze to its center—and saw Harold and John sitting on a bench admiring the gingko tree that loomed over the garden’s courtyard. If their backs weren’t turned to her she would’ve waved, but instead her ears picked up the gurgling of water coming from her room’s shared bathroom. She walked over and knocked on the door. 

“Come in.” Shaw grunted.

Sameen stood brushing her hair in a robe when Root opened the door; her locks still looked slippery from being wet, but Root would’ve liked to have brushed them for her. In the bathtub the last dregs of water swirled away, and Shaw took a moment to swish more water around the basin and plug the drain, then started the water going again.

“For me?” Root asked. 

It wasn’t a serious question; Shaw had clearly already bathed, though Root liked the idea of pulling the other woman into the water with her just to see what she would do. (She liked imagining what would happen after that much more.) Shaw sighed and threw her a clean towel.

“Yeah, the bath’s for you. Now hurry up—I could eat an ox right now.”

Root shed her clothes and slid into the tub, steam shifting in tendrils over the water. Her skin seemed to melt with a tingle of pleasure, but as much as she wanted to luxuriate in the bath she also didn’t want to keep Shaw waiting, so she lathered up a rich layer of soap and scrubbed herself down.

“I saw Harold and John in the garden,” Root said through the now-closed door to Shaw’s room. 

“They’ve been up for a few hours now. You’re the lazy one today—I didn’t know if we’d even get anything to eat this morning.”

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

“Well, I do, and at this rate we’ll be lucky if there’s any left over.”

“You were kind to wait for me.”

A pause. Interesting.

“Harold doesn’t want any of us walking around alone.” Shaw said.

Nice deflection there; Root might’ve bought it if there wasn’t that barest hint of defensiveness in Shaw’s tone.

When Root finished dressing she joined Shaw and went downstairs. They managed to take the right door the first time, but then she messed up: Root opened the door she thought led to the dining room and found a dancing parlor instead, the parquet shiny with fresh wax. Shaw tugged at her sleeve.

“I counted the doors in this hall last night. I think it’s this one.”

But Shaw was wrong too; her choice led to a billiard room. Annoyed, she let the door slam itself.

“We better nail these open today.” She said. “I’m not doing this every morning.”

“When I find a hammer I promise to let you have the first swing.” Root replied.

At some point they found the dining room, and Greer was beginning the process of gathering the remains of toast, biscuits, and sausage gravy that laid arranged neatly on the table. Shaw snatched a plate and heaped bits of food onto it in a pile, raising the plate to her face to eat faster once she had a fork. After the opening frenzy of bites, Shaw closed her eyes in concentration, savoring the flavor with animalistic intensity. Root watched in rapt amusement for a few moments until Shaw startled her; the fork in Shaw’s fist flashed in Greer’s direction, threatening.

“Hey, don’t take those; Root’s hungry.”

The old man had taken the last of the food onto a silver tray—a bowl of grapes and a plate of ham. He froze, eyes locked with Shaw’s.

“I clear by nine.” He stated, never blinking. Shaw glared back.

Root took the opportunity to lift a bunch of grapes from the bowl, cradling them with her hands.

“These are fine, Shaw.” She said. The other woman shrugged, and Greer shuffled out. “I told you that I didn’t eat breakfast.”

“And those hunger pangs say you’re lying.” Shaw replied, mouth half-full of food. She swallowed the last bite and set the plate down with the other dirty dishes. “You can’t hide that from me.”

“How did you—”

“I told you, I have talents. Finch calls people like me empaths; I can sense what people feel.”

“That’s…incredible.” 

Shaw shrugged. “It can be. And it can be a pain in the ass.”

“Do you ever, you know, get your wires crossed? Mix up your feelings for someone else’s?”

“No. I’m a sociopath, I don’t have feelings.” She took a grape from Root’s bunch, popping it into her mouth. “Let’s go look for Finch and Reese.”

  


  


Finch had never seen a house that in so many ways reminded him of a labyrinth, and he had taken great pains to navigate it in advance for the benefit of his companions. After the ladies found Mr. Reese and himself sitting in the garden, Miss Groves insisted they begin a tour of the estate; a wise idea, since Harold hated to think of what could happen if one were lost inside it, especially at night. 

“The house’s ground level forms a series of concentric circles, much like Dante’s Inferno,” He began in the foyer. “Sets of rooms branch out from the dining room like in layers, though the placements of these areas are misaligned; there’s no way to travel in a straight line through a set of locations.”

“Why?” John asked.

“It was an intentional design, though for what purpose I’m unsure.”

He walked through one of the doors, the others trailing behind him. They traveled through various sewing rooms and fainting rooms, solariums and kitchens; he explained each area in relation to the rest of the house as best he could, noting direction and linking rooms together by color or other traits, and Root began trying out names for each place as they passed through.

“This one can be the Cabbage room,” She said, gesturing to the plant-bedecked wallpaper. “I have to admit, it’s difficult to keep them all straight.”

“We’re going to need a common language to make this work,” John added. “There’s too many places that serve the same function not to. What do you think, Shaw? The Cabbage room?”

“Sure.”

“I made copies of the layout before our arrival,” Finch said. “I’ll give them to you when we return to the main parlor. Whatever names you choose for the rooms, I recommend you memorize them and their placements as quickly as possible—Samaritan is no doubt already in the process of becoming active.”

The others shifted uncomfortably, making eye contact with each other without speaking. Best to drive away any thoughts of fear, Harold decided.

“I’ve asked Mr. Greer to prepare dinner _al fresco_ tonight. The weather is expected to be unusually superb. Do any of you play chess?”

“I do,” Root said. Finch smiled.

“Excellent. I do look forward to a worthy competitor. Here, we’ve come around to the library.” He pointed across the hall. “If you remember, we sat in that parlor last night. I believe it would be wise to make that our primary headquarters of operations, since it is centrally located in the house. The dining room is through the door there and down the hallway, the third on the right, and the foyer straight on.”

“The sooner I have that map, the better.” John said. “This place has a way of turning me around.”

“The tour is almost complete, Mr. Reese. Only one room remaining. Miss Shaw.”

Shaw had a question lingering in her gaze, but Harold gave her no clues, simply gestured to the library’s door. Slowly, she reached out to grasp its bronze doorknob. As her fingers curled around it, she shuddered, the skin of her forearm erupting into goosebumps. She released the doorknob in a flash, shaking out her hand.

“What’s wrong?” Root asked.

“It’s cold. There was something there once, but…it wasn’t good.” Her brows knitted into stern lines. “It’s an echo, that’s all.”

Harold opened the door for them, guiding them into the library at last.

“The mirrors are incredible, Harold,” Root gasped. “I’m getting dizzy.”

Each person had a perfect likeness linked under a mirrored floor to their feet and reflected along each wall. The massive room’s octagonal shape was further compounded by the multiple mirrors placed to create even more angles; they formed twenty-some versions of Root, of John, of Shaw, of himself; each a new gradient of their original form moving in sync. The books were much higher on shelves twenty or thirty feet up, accessible only from a single wrought iron spiral staircase devoid of railings, each step treacherous. The only security was on the balcony itself; a single ugly black handrail that slashed across the space to each wall. Shaw swallowed, unsteady on her feet. She pointed to the balcony.

“She died there, didn’t she? The companion. She tied herself to the railing and jumped.”

“Is everything alright?” Harold asked. Shaw’s mouth had gone slack, her eyes unfocused.

“Shaw—” John started, reaching for her, but she raced out the door, barely making it to the hallway before slumping against the wall, retching horribly. Root ran after her. Shaw slammed her palm to the doorframe, grinding it into the wood, fighting for control.

“Hey,” Root said, running her hand along her back. “Hey, relax.”

“Perhaps we should return to the parlor,” Finch suggested. “There we could better let the psychometric resonance fade from Miss Shaw’s system.”

“Hell no,” Shaw snarled, her eyes flashing with defiance. “A few psychic traces don’t bother me.”

“I insist. Don’t worry about the mess; I’ll clean it up later. Miss Groves, would you and Mr. Reese fetch some water from the kitchen?”

Root glanced to Shaw, concerned, and judging from the way her hands lingered on Shaw’s shoulders, she already seemed quite attached to the other woman. _Good,_ Harold thought. That would protect them both. Though Root seemed loathe to leave, she went with John, and Harold took Shaw to the parlor. He guided her to the sofa, where she sat with her elbows braced against her knees, her jaw set and angry. He sat across from her and watched.

“What you do must be so difficult.” He said.

“It caught me off-guard. Won’t happen again.”

“Miss Shaw. Sameen.” She looked up. “I intend to keep you safe. If Samaritan’s influence—”

“Finch, I’ve got this. I’ve been dealing with unwanted intrusions my entire life; other peoples’ emotions crowding in all at once. They can’t get all the way in,” She tapped her temple with two fingers. “Axis II personality disorder. Samaritan can’t influence me to a tipping point, because there’s nothing to influence. I’m not like Eleanor Claypool’s lover or anyone else. My brain is a steel door—it just slams shut.”

“While I take comfort in your confidence, I am prepared to take whatever measures are necessary to secure the safety of my staff.”

“Is that what we are, Harold, while this house tries to drive us insane? Your staff?”

“And my friends, I hope.” Shaw went silent, staring at the floor. “If this study continues, and Samaritan begins to pull apart the threads of our flaws and failures, promise me. Promise me that if you believe it is starting to break you, that you will leave before it’s too late.”

After a moment, Shaw nodded.

After a respite and a lunch where they all looked over copies of the house’s floorplan, Harold opened the back of his truck and passed out hammers and little bags of nails. They paired off, Reese and Shaw taking the west wing of the house, Root and himself talking the east; it took them hours to cover each section, and it seemed Root shared Finch’s fascination with the number of doors in each room. He found it troubling—each door was both a potential escape route and point of entry for whatever lurked here. But by nailing them open, at least they would gain visibility into other parts of the house, however limited by the house’s bizarre construction. Root likened it to a wasp’s nest, and the comparison was apt.

When Greer had finished arranging dinner on the veranda, the sky had entered its golden hour. They took their places as they did last night, already with a familiar air, as though they had lived together for weeks and not hours; Harold welcomed the feeling. It had been so long since he had enjoyed company of this kind, the discussion of politics and literature, small talk and the occasional pun; Grace always compared his need for socialization to a plant’s desire for sunlight, and teased him for hiding away so shyly. Nathan had been one of his only friends, and while few had the intelligence to spark Finch’s interest, it was the heart behind the reasoning that drew him most to new people, the curiosity and wonder. 

“Imagine,” Root said, their earlier conversation continuing despite his daydreaming. “One day we might not work at all. Everything could be motorized, automatized, even the process of innovation itself—there could be machines capable of the same brilliance as you or I.”

“Or capable of the same failures.” Harold replied. “And if a machine could learn to think as we do, to act as we do, we would return to the problem presented in the Garden of Eden: what would happen when these machines discovered the knowledge of Good and Evil? Would they repeat Mankind’s mistakes?”

“Maybe. And then the question would change entirely, wouldn’t it? We couldn’t measure ourselves with only action or inaction, but with intent: what is it, exactly, that makes an action just or unjust? What, exactly, makes us human?”

“Confusion would be a good guess.” John interjected with a polite look of helplessness. 

He looked across the table to Shaw, who glowered even though she listened wordlessly, keenly focused on Root as she spoke. Root smiled, made a gentle joke about Reese’s intellectual predicament, and changed the subject. Harold thought she seemed like a woman with many ideas and few opportunities to voice them. It was refreshing. He would have to indulge in more rigorous conversation with her later.

“Listen,” John said. Off-key notes wafted in from the woods. “Wolves. Didn’t think they’d come so close to humans.”

“Trees screw with sound. They could be anywhere.” Shaw said.

After their rich plates of food were consumed and abandoned and the night air began to cool, they moved back inside, back to the parlor they had used the night before. John took a nearby decanter of brandy from the sideboard and poured several glasses, passing them to each person. Root found the chessboard and Harold played several matches with her, their thoughtful silence interrupted only by her occasional comments on his strategy.

“Where did you learn that move?”

“Ah—it’s called the Stonewall Attack. I learned it in college from a friend.”

“Interesting. You keep surprising me, Harold.” He smiled.

“You keep me on guard as well, Miss Groves. Your skill is admirable.” She grinned in return, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. 

“I learned to play chess when I was a little girl. I had a friend who was fascinated by it.” A flash of sadness crept into her features. “She never got the chance to teach me her best moves.”

“…What happened?”

“She vanished. At least, that’s what the police said.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“Never. She never would’ve left without telling me.” She moved another piece, a line setting between her brows. There was a story there, but he would wait to ask about it. Root leaned back in her chair, then glanced over to the sitting area. 

“Are you cold, Sameen?” She asked. 

The other woman had moved one of the chairs closer to the fire and pulled her knees to her chest. She shrugged. 

“Just a draft.” She said. “I’m fine,” Shaw added. John threw a throw blanket to her, and she accepted it without another word. 

_We’re like a little family already,_ Harold thought, and once again was pleased by the thought.

Around ten the brandy had sunk into a warm glow in his core and the others were dozing in their seats around the fire. Harold shuttered the iron grate in front of the lowering flames and gave Reese’s shoulder a gentle shake. The other man’s eyelids fluttered open.

“John,” Harold murmured. “Let’s call it a night.”

“Yeah,” John rubbed at his face. “Sounds good.”

He disturbed Shaw as carefully, and Root last of all. It was hard to justify waking any of them when they looked so comfortable, but they would all be better served by sleeping in their own beds, no matter how safe he felt among them. If Harold were a stronger man and without his limp, he would’ve considered carrying each of them upstairs, but the ludicrous idea of lugging a man of John’s size in his arms banished the thought into amusement. Instead, Harold and his tired friends made the journey silent as ghosts, each retiring to their own room with a soft “Good night” and accompanied by the click of a lock. He changed into pajamas and settled into bed, falling into a sleep as absolute as death the moment his head hit the pillow.

  


  


When John saw the shadow from the crack under his door, his fingers curled around the switchblade on his nightstand as easily as breathing. The shadow was quick and fleeting, too fast for any of his companions and too quiet. He pulled aside his blankets without a sound, and even the fall of his feet on the rug was silent. He waited, thumb on the button of his knife, and listened. 

In Indonesia, a man’s ears were more important than his eyes. Beale always joked that John had a bat’s hearing (tuned to the extreme) but it was more than that; it was the listening and the breathing. Breathe in for five long seconds, hold it for five, breathe out for five long seconds. The silence of his action gave him clarity, and the honed awareness of it focused him in on other noises; it was how, even in Jakarta’s thickest crowd, he could always tell Kara was around the next corner (the sharp angle of her heel on the concrete), or how he knew a target was dead (the last tiny wheeze from lungs filled with blood). The world vibrated and echoed, and he noticed. He wasn’t special—they had tested for that—but he was a damn good operative. At least, he was until his partner tried to put a bullet in his back. Then he was a ghost, and one with occasional bouts of insomnia.

The feet on the carpet outside were quiet, and not at all human; there was a huffing, a sniffing like that of a dog. The shadow paced up and down the hall once, twice, three times, then stopped in front of his door. Then, John heard the distinct rumble of a growl, and the beast took off down the hallway. He listened again, and for minutes there was nothing. He breathed and centered his heart, which had picked up a few beats in the waiting. He pulled on a pair of slacks and put on his shoes. Then, the blade in his hand now free and lethal, he opened his door.

The animal was gone from the hallway. Reese was sure it had sensed the danger somehow and fled; animals were perceptive like that. But a wild animal in the house was dangerous—Harold had warned them about walking about at night, but in the morning no one would be expecting to encounter a beast wandering around the house. The animal needed to be released, or if necessary, put down. John thought of the service pistol he had left in Harold’s room; it was the 1911 he had used in Korea, and though Harold said he detested guns, it made Reese feel better knowing Finch had it tucked away in the nightstand. They would need it now. He stepped across the hall and knocked on Finch’s door, keeping an eye on the stairs at the end of the hall. 

“Mr. Reese?” A single, sleepy eye devoid of glasses peeked through the crack in the door. “Is everything alright?”

“I don’t want to alarm you, Harold, but I think there’s an animal loose in the house.”

“What? That’s absurd.”

Finch let him into the room, locking the door behind them, and John opened the drawer of the nightstand. He took the pistol, checked it, and tucked it into his waistband. Then he offered his switchblade to Harold. The other man pinched the handle between his forefinger and thumb, a grimace across his face.

“The house’s doors are all locked, Mr. Reese. I checked them with Miss Shaw before we went to bed.”

“I know what I heard, Finch. Get some shoes on.”

  


  


“I don’t care,” Root said in her sleep. “I don’t care.”

In her dream, her mother’s hands pounded feebly on the table.

“Root?” Someone called.

“I don’t care,” She repeated.

A series of loud knocks sounded down the hallway, and Root snapped awake with a shock. She tore away her blankets and sat up in bed. She wasn’t in Bishop, she remembered. She was here, inside Samaritan.

“Root?” 

It was Shaw, whispering through the bathroom door. Root stumbled over, still not entirely awake. She turned on the light and unlocked the connecting door, allowing Shaw to enter shivering in a slip, her eyes wide. She locked the door behind her.

“Do you hear that?” Shaw’s hair was wild from sleeping, her skin raised in gooseflesh. “It’s knocking at all the doors.”

They stood in silence, listening. The knocks were firm and regular; it was almost as if an idle hand was tapping with a hammer. It struck in a pattern; a few big, slow hits, then a few lighter taps, then back to the slower knocks. But after a pause, the sound changed. It became a crash, persistent and threatening. It now reminded Root of a battering ram or a cannonball, like a big ball of iron was trying to smash out a design. Root took a fire poker from the cold fireplace. Shaw put a hand out, as if to take it from her, but she shook her head.

“Sit.” She instructed. 

Shaw didn’t like it, but she did as she was told and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. In the hall, the noise continued, now pounding at the door of Shaw’s room. Her eyes flickered between the connecting door and the door to the hall, her body rigid. Root sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder; every inch of Sameen’s body was tense.

“I can feel it,” Shaw whispered. “It comes in waves, like something alive.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Root, it’s like I’ve got spikes right through here.” She touched her fingers along different parts of her scalp. “I can’t think straight.”

“It’s okay, I’m here,” Root said. 

That seemed like a silly response—as if Shaw would ever need her protection—but it was the right thing to say, because Sameen let go some of the breath she’d been holding and didn’t pull away. 

“Where’s Reese?” Shaw asked. “Where’s Finch?”

“I don’t know. Probably huddled together like we are.”

The noise paused, and the two women waited with bated breath. It gave another terrific smash to Shaw’s door, and then the constant noise vanished, quiet replacing it. After a minute or two, they heard voices downstairs; John and Harold must’ve gone down into the house for some reason. Perhaps they had seen something? But that would mean that the two of them were alone up here, and the thought terrified her. She wrapped a hand around Shaw’s wrist, looking for comfort, and noted the marked trembling of it.

“Sameen, you’re freezing.” 

She dropped the poker on the mattress and turned to her, intent on fixing the current problem. Root gathered the comforter from the bed and wrapped it around the both of them, arranging Shaw’s arms around her neck and pulling her close, rubbing her hands in circles along her friend’s back and arms to create some friction. Sameen shook with the cold, even though she was tight in Root’s embrace; Root’s own breath misted in the air. 

“You can let go now,” Shaw said after a few moments, her teeth chattering. 

“And ruin this moment we’re having?” She said with a humor she didn’t feel. “I don’t think so. Not until you warm up.” She felt Shaw’s breath puff hot over her collarbone and pressed her cheek against Shaw’s temple, adrenaline flushing through her system despite the chill. 

“It started at the white room,” Shaw murmured. “The knocking.”

“What do you think it wants?”

Just then, the noise crashed into their bedroom door. Root cried out, surprised, and at once the blows began to fall onto the door in a frenzy. The wood creaked and shuttered with each hit, the strikes becoming less like those of a slow battering ram and more like a wild animal smashing and tearing at the door, desperate to get in. A great gust of cold air swept into the room and swirled around their bodies, the temperature dropping by the second. Fine ice crystals began to form along their eyelashes and around the moist edges of their lips, and Root clung to Shaw, desperate to keep the heat from being leached so quickly from their skin. 

The doorknob jerked violently, as though the force was trying to break the bulb from its spindle. The hinges wobbled, as if the screws holding them in place would shear any second. The door began to bow and they heard wood splitting; horribly, the door expanded and retracted like a lung, as if it breathed and splintered with every action. Root gathered her courage.

“Go away!” She yelled. She kept Shaw close; she wouldn’t let it have her. “Leave us alone!”

The room began to vibrate with enormous force. 

“Leave us alone!” She cried, desperate.

Shaw twisted in her grasp, aiming to seize the poker and protect both of them, but she wouldn’t let her go. Root’s bones quaked from the inside out—she felt intense pressure swell within her eyes, as if they would burst at any moment, the skin under her nails prickling as though a fine needle forked its point in lines along each bed, her stomach rolling like a snake twisting in her guts—

And then, there was nothing.

“Root!” John yelled outside. “Root! Shaw!” 

The vibration was gone. The noise was gone. The door rattled as Reese broke it down; he stared in shock at them for a moment, and then rushed to the bed, wiping Root’s face of its intense sheen of sweat with a fistful of sheets.

“Good lord!” Harold cried from the doorway. He limped into the room. “Are you alright?”

“I—” Her voice creaked. 

“Miss Shaw—”

“I’m fine” She replied. “I’ll be fine.”

“What on earth happened?” Harold asked.

“I…don’t know. Where were you?”

“Finch and I were downstairs. We saw a wolf in the house.”

“A wolf?”

“Yes.

“How did it get in? Was a door open?” Root asked.

“No, they were all locked. But it was here. We saw it wandering the halls; we chased it out to the garden and lost it behind the house somewhere. We searched for an hour before we came inside.”

“We had just given up on our search when we heard you scream.”

“You didn’t hear it?” Root asked. “The pounding? The door breaking?”

“The only thing we heard was you just now. Until that moment, we thought you were both asleep. Look, Miss Groves: the door is completely untouched.”

She released Shaw, rising on unsteady feet to go to the doorway. What Harold said was true: save for the damage John caused in opening it, the door’s wood was shiny and flawless. She ran her fingers along it. It was smooth and polished to perfection.

“I think we must be very careful from this moment on.” Harold said.

“What are you thinking, Harold?” She asked.

He paused, looking at all of them in turn, then resting his gaze on Shaw. 

“Mr. Reese and I are drawn outside of Samaritan by a mysterious occurrence, and you and Miss Shaw are attacked inside, completely without our knowledge. Doesn’t it seem to remind you of a chess game, Miss Groves?” 

“What do you mean?” Root asked. 

He locked eyes with her as she understood. He spoke very quietly.

“Divide and conquer.”


	4. Day/Night 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update: publishing a work in progress is new to me, since usually I have it all done before I post it, but I am working hard to keep to a deadline for the finale of the piece. It will probably be another week or two before I finish the final section; please be patient with me. Enjoy!

They didn’t sleep alone after that. Both men decided to stay in Finch’s room, and after a brief discussion determined that the ladies would do the same; just as well, Shaw thought, because she passed out a moment after. To Shaw, it seemed like her recollection of the events in Root’s room were clouded over; she could recall the knocking, and her fingers closing around the knob to their shared bathroom—she remembered thinking about how much her head hurt, and remembered the way Root’s fear coursed through every vein like a torrent, but for the actual situation…most of the details were blank.  


She awoke in Root’s bed later that morning. A chaise was pulled up to the side of the mattress, and Root laid awake on it curled into herself like a cat, her head resting on her arms.

“Good morning,” She said.

“Have you been watching me sleep?” Root smiled at her scowl. “Root.”

“Relax, sweetie; I’ve been gone getting you breakfast.” She gestured to the nightstand, where a large cinnamon roll sat gooey with frosting next to a mug of coffee. “Your dreams are safe.”

“We’re not supposed to go anywhere alone.” 

“But if I waited for you, how was I going to woo you with food?” Root shrugged. “I’ll take you next time, promise.”

“That’s a carefree attitude considering what happened last night.”

“I know.”

Root stretched out, her smile replaced with a troubled expression. She cradled her head in her hand and picked at the fabric of the chaise.

“It’s strange. I remember being frightened; I was so frightened I don’t know what I would’ve done if John and Harold had come any later. The way I remember it, it seemed like whatever that force was, it wanted to _come in._ ” She frowned. “No, more than that. It wanted to take us. Or maybe just one of us, I don’t know, but I remember being terrified. But this morning, when I think about it, it doesn’t seem so bad.” She looked at Shaw, concerned. “I wonder if that’s part of Samaritan’s influence. It’s trying to soothe us enough to make sure we stay. But what happened…” She trailed off with a sigh. “Well, they say you’re not really living until you’ve almost died, right? And at least we were together.” 

Shaw thought about the last night. When Root held her, she recalled the way Root’s pulse hammered under her hands and how, besides the nauseating, ripping headache she had from Samaritan, Shaw had also been flooded with Root’s fear and…affection for her. The strength of it was surprising. And now, as she looked at Root, Shaw understood how much the woman’s nonchalance served as a cover for a real sense of concern. Not just concern about the situation in general, but about her in particular.

“Hey,” Shaw rolled over onto her side. “I don’t remember much either, but thanks for saving my ass.”

“Of course,” Root said, surprised. She brightened immediately. “You can always count on me, Sameen.” 

Root’s grin was back, sincere this time, and Shaw welcomed it. Some of Root’s happiness must be catching; Shaw felt her own heart jump against her ribs. It wasn’t bothersome—quite the opposite. Most of her life, receiving others’ emotions was like trying to put a puzzle together with half the pieces: the general shape and pattern could be calculated, but it was impossible to know and understand the finished product with perfect clarity. With her connection to Root (Did she want to call it that? Shaw thought she might.) it was like a few of the missing pieces had been found, and now that she had gotten over her uneasiness, she was pleased.

“Come out with me this morning.”

“Shaw, you know how frowned upon that is in polite society.”

“Not that,” She rolled her eyes. “Come walk the grounds with me. I want to get more of the lay of the land.”

“Can’t. After breakfast I’m helping Harold calibrate the machine; he says I should try to get as familiar with it as possible, since we’ll be examining the readouts every morning. And he wants to try an experiment tonight, so he’s walking me through that too. Take John—he looks like he could use some quiet time outdoors. I’ll catch up with you in the afternoon.” She smirked. “Consider it a date.”

“Alright then, the afternoon. Meet me in the garden, and don’t be late.”

  
  
An hour or two later, after she had woofed down breakfast and cleaned up, Shaw met John on the lawn. He nodded, no greeting needed, and she noticed a pair of small binoculars bulging from his pocket. Definitely ex-military, she decided. She couldn’t imagine Reese was into birdwatching. 

They traveled into the woods, and they looked like any other she had seen. The trees were thick, and the sunlight dappled, and it was as normal as it could be. The two of them didn’t talk beyond deciding where to go next, and Reese was locked up tight about himself; at best, all she picked up the stoic sense of calm she had noticed emanating from him during their first meeting, with perhaps a little something else simmering underneath. In that way, he was like her.

“What’s your story?” She asked as they squeezed between a fallen tree trunk and its decaying stump. John brushed specks of rotting wood from his trousers.

“No story. I’m a friend of the owner.”

“And you’re here to protect the property. I get that. I’m asking why you’re on edge. You keep checking the perimeter like you think some Viet Cong are coming over the hill.”

“In Korea you wouldn’t see them coming. That’s why they were so dangerous.”

There was something there—she could feel it. Loss. Anger. Muted, but present.

“Samaritan’s biding its time,” He continued. “Finch said it waits until it knows your weaknesses, then springs the trap. I don’t plan on giving it another opportunity.”

“Do you think Finch was right about the wolf last night? That it was a distraction?”

“Yeah. It knew how to lure me in.”

He couldn’t help but act when he thought others were in danger. She knew the feeling.

“Finch wants Root to work the machine,” He said. “He thinks it might be compatible with her for use as a conduit to get some messages down. It’s strange.”

“Why?”

“Root doesn’t strike me as gifted. Not the way you are.”

“We’re not in the same ballpark, that’s for sure. There’s something about her—I can’t put my finger on it.” They hiked up a footpath, Reese trailing after her. “She’s different.”

“Sounds like she interests you.”

“More like I’m concerned about our professional interactions. Her…attachment started right away. I’m not used to people wanting to be around me.” 

She wasn’t used to wanting to be around others either. The feeling was mutual; in so little time Root had a habit of worming past any wall she put up, and Shaw in turn felt drawn to her like the needle of a compass pointing north. And if Root could found a way into her sociopathic heart in the short matter of a day or two, did that mean Samaritan could as well? Shaw felt the vaguest stirrings of unease boil in her stomach. 

Root was…lovely, if she was honest. Beautiful and sharp-witted. But in this place, she was also a temptation, one that could put them all at risk; because of her empathic nature, of all the company Shaw had the greatest potential for turning awry. Opening herself to Root (or rather, allowing Root to open her) was as risky as it was inevitable. And in the wake of Root’s seduction, Finch’s worst predictions would come to pass: Samaritan would use that opening to wear down the remainder her best defense, her steel door of emotionless logic, and warp her perceptions into a nightmare. And if she could be turned, what would she be made to do? 

“Harold says strong emotional connections protect psychics from the house’s influence,” Reese said. “I don’t know if I buy it.”

“Me neither.”

“You and Root have to be careful. Watch out for each other.”

“I do,” She said, but remembered the last night’s knocking and her own uselessness. “I will.”

But she wasn’t sure if she could. How could she keep someone safe if she herself was the source of danger? John nudged her. 

“I’ve got your back too.” He said. “Ranger’s honor.”

That brought a bit of a smile. “You grunts and your code.” 

“Swallow some of that leatherneck pride,” John grinned back. “It’ll do you good.”

They hiked and talked, and for a few hours, Shaw escaped her worries of madness and terror and the fear of Samaritan’s influence. She moored herself to the sweep of leaves under her feet and the crisp air in her lungs, and her mind only dimly traveled back across the lawn, back into the estate, tracing backwards always to Root, Root, Root.

  
  


As Shaw circled around the woods on her hike with John, Root fell asleep waiting. By the entrance of the garden’s hedge maze there was a beech tree with a massive orange canopy, and the grass underneath it looked so fine and smooth she couldn’t resist taking off her shoes and lying down. And once she had relaxed onto the soft, even ground, she let her thoughts drift, and they led her into sleep. Briefly, in the twilight just before passing into dreams, Root thought about what Shaw would do when she found her there; probably speak her name or shake her awake, but it was nice to think of other alternatives.

Instead, Shaw woke her up by holding her hand. Not holding it, really—examining it. Root awoke with a wince; Shaw had touched some of the cuts on the backs of her knuckles.

“Where did you get these?” Shaw asked.

“Working on the machine with Harold. Something jammed.”

“Hmm.”

“I cleaned the scratches, and they’re not that bad.” 

She released herself from Shaw’s grasp, opened the other woman’s hand, and touched her fingertips to the hard calluses stationed at the root of each digit. Shaw watched her fingers trace the lines of her palm, and it looked to Root as though she was lost in thought. She would’ve very much liked to kiss her then; she would press her lips right to the corner of Shaw’s mouth, and she would put a hand to her cheek to keep her close. But she wasn’t sure if Shaw would like that yet, so instead, she squeezed Shaw’s hand and got up, brushing stray bits of grass out of her hair.

“Where’d you and John go?” A long pause. “Shaw?”

“Huh? Oh. The woods. All over.”

That was strange, Root thought. Shaw seemed…off. 

“I’m kind of keen on exploring this hedge maze, but you invited me, so you decide.” 

“Wherever you want to go, sure.”

The maze wasn’t truly a maze, but it did meander through different areas and displays of greenery. Occasionally they would spot statues hidden in alcoves or clusters of flowers in little beds. They made small talk, and as they lingered in a spot they found Root tried to suss what was different about her companion. It wasn’t unfamiliarity like when they first met; she wasn’t tense. But she was…different that before. That was the simplest way Root could process it. When they wandered into another sitting area there were vines with small, white flowers and big yellow blooms that hung like suspended trumpets from an arbor. 

“Night bloomers.” Root said, delighted.

“What?”

“Flowers that open up in the evening.” She pointed. “Look.” 

She took one of the white flowers in her fingers and opened it to show her; the flower was so small they had to lean in close to look at it properly. The flower came apart layer by layer, like the delicate unfolding of a silk napkin. 

“My mother grew these on the side of our house before her accident. Here.”

She held the flower to Shaw’s nose, but she only sniffed once and backed away. Root let the blossom drop and shrugged.

“My dad didn’t like them either,” She said. “Drove his allergies crazy. But he didn’t stick around, so I grew up with them.”

“What was the accident? Your mother’s accident.”

“She fell down a flight of stairs. It paralyzed her.” The lie came quick and clean through years of practice.

Shaw narrowed her eyes. For once, Root felt uneasy.

“Tell me the rest, Root.”

“…The rest?” 

“The part you’re not telling me.”

“I didn’t think you would have an interest.”

“I do when it makes you nervous. I felt the kick in your guts: you’re hiding something.” She prodded with her words. That keen look was back in her eyes, penetrating in its focus. “Tell me.”

Root had never talked about the accident, and no one had asked. In her own view, she was free of any…moral complications, but when Shaw asked her…What would she think of her, Root wondered, if Shaw could see the memory flashing through her mind? 

It happened on her nineteenth birthday, just over a decade ago, early in the morning. Her mother had found her paltry savings stashed in a coffee can under a floorboard in her room; she had stuffed bills slipped out of her mother’s purse and her earnings from working in town into that space for three years, reading books in the library and whittling hours away at the movies. She studied Fontaine’s sweetness, Crawford’s deviousness, Hepburn’s gift for repartee; she swirled her favorites together and practiced becoming who she always felt she was inside, someone different than the shy girl with her nose in a book and her quiet ways. The goal was simple: finish high school, and leave for better things. And then her mother found the money.

Root could still see it in the crook of her mother’s arm; she saw a cigarette pinched between her mother’s fingers, her yellow teeth bared in a sneer, eyes rolling with the whiskey like always even though it was before noon. Her mother had the cash and she turned to go down the stairs, and she—the only logical explanation was that she stumbled. She was drunk to the gills, after all. But Root wasn’t so sure. In her mind’s eye, Root thought she saw ripples of movement, subtle as an underwater wave; when she bore her hateful gaze into her mother’s back, that was the moment her mother fell. She fell down the stairs so hard it snapped her spine, and Root saw her mother’s future close in an instant.

“Tell me, Root.”

“I may have…indirectly caused the accident to happen. I don’t know.”

“And?”

“And I—”

Another flash of the past: herself, weeks later, glaring down at her newly-quadriplegic mother and fighting with her own anger. She couldn’t leave her, not with her savings gone and a whisper of conscience telling her it was wrong, but while she lived Root was chained to one spot. The hot spots in her cheeks could have been from rage or pity.

_“I can’t be a cripple. I can’t stand the pain,”_ Her mother said. _“I can’t. You have to help me.”_

_“I don’t care.”_

It was cold and good to say it. 

_“I don’t care.”_

_“Please,”_ Mother begged. _“Your daddy’s shotgun.”_ Her weak fist slammed onto the table, barely mobile. _“Do it. Please.”_

_“You’ll die when I tell you to,”_ She spat. _“You’ll die when I’ve collected enough of your checks to run away from here.”_

_“Samantha—”_

_“My name is Root.”_

Shaw’s face was eerily neutral. Root felt like she could tell her anything.

“—And I made her suffer for years. I used her pain to set myself free.”

There it was. Root exhaled; she never thought she would have to think about it ever again. The whole point was to leave all shame and boundaries behind, to become free to be whomever she wanted, no matter how amoral; now, as Shaw examined her, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be exactly that person anymore. 

“There—” She bit back her words, took a breath, tried again. “There’s no justifying what I did, but I don’t regret it, and I won’t make excuses for it.”

Shaw took a few steps down the path. She looked over her shoulder at her: an invitation. Root caught up, and when she dared to thread her arm through Shaw’s, Sameen didn’t pull away. That was good, at least. 

They cleared the maze after a few minutes and entered the central part of the garden, the gingko tree towering at its middle. They walked in slow circles around it, never stopping to sit or pause; it seemed like the movement helped Shaw think, judging by her contracted brows. 

Root wanted to say something. She had no idea what.

“I’ve killed a lot of people.” Shaw said at last.

“What?” Of all the possible responses playing out in her head, she didn’t quite expect that.

“For the government. I didn’t pull any triggers—I supplied information to teams, and they killed the targets. But the result is the same.”

“Were they bad people?”

“Some. Most of them were just on the wrong side. I quit, but I’m still responsible for those deaths.”

“…I see.”

“Bad things happen. You and I have both done what we thought was necessary, and maybe we’re evil for that. But you can’t dwell on it; moving on is the only way anything gets done.” She shrugged. “No one gets away clean.”

“Are you…trying to make me feel better?”

“I’m telling you you’re not alone. Next best thing, don’t you think?”

It was. The golden, fan-shaped leaves of the gingko tree fluttered as the wind sighed through them, and although her crime had not been forgiven, it was as though a weight had lifted from her chest; in their short time together, it was clear Sameen didn’t give her trust lightly, but she had chosen to share a secret with Root—a high honor indeed. She would have to repay the courtesy somehow. She noticed that her companion had fallen behind. She stopped and turned; Shaw stood with her hands in her pockets, studying her.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?” Root asked, curious.

“Like what?”

“Like…” She stepped forward. “Like I’m a puzzle you can’t solve.”

“Not a puzzle. A reflection.”

Interesting. Root took another step. They were close now. She brushed away forest chaff from Shaw’s jacket, letting her palms rest heavy on the lapels when she was finished; she let her thumbs hook around the edges and gathered the fabric into her fists. Shaw took in a measured breath, her gaze steady. 

“Tell me, Sameen,” She murmured. 

Root touched the soft spot just below her ear, fingers following the line of her jaw until they draped over Shaw’s mouth; with the slightest pressure, her lips opened enough for Root to feel the barest shiver of a warm breath on her fingertips. 

“What do you want to see next?”

As she leaned forward, discomfort flared into her wrist; she gasped, felt Shaw’s hand on the small of her back pulling her closer, so close they could stand cheek to cheek if they wanted. The pain in her hand faded as Shaw’s fingers enclosed around it, no longer tight, only restraining. Root barely had the chance to form a word before Shaw released her, escaping off into the hedges from whence they came, but in that instant between the grasp and the release, Root’s heart kicked like a stallion against her ribcage. She had overstepped, scared Shaw off, but they had shared a look, just then, and it gave her hope. She had seen into Sameen’s eyes, and saw a glimmer of the same tremor running rampant through her own being—a feeling that was inescapably black and deep and consuming.

Longing.

  
  


Harold finished the last punch card for the machine and set it to the side.

“Now, are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” He asked. “The experiment is not without risk.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

“Very well. Whenever you’re ready, Miss Groves.”

It was after dinner, and evening had already swept over the valley. He had been coding most of the day, and while Reese had dropped in and out to ask questions about the details for the night, most of the work had been done with complete focus. This was the maiden run of his prototype, after all.

“So I just, what, think about nothing?”

“In a way, yes.”

Root sat on the end of the sofa with a halo of cables and electrodes circling her head, her hair gathered into a ponytail to give as much surface area to the sensors as possible. Other sensors dotted any sections of exposed skin like electronic leeches, little analog arteries that fed into larger veins of cables bunched together. The cables from the rig traveled along the floor to the machine across the parlor. Harold stood and brought her a cup of steaming hot tea.

“I recommend you drink this. It contains small amounts of dimethyltryptamine; it’s what Latin American shamans would use to contact daemons and spirits, and it should help to relax and open you to receiving signals. I will warn you that it is a mild hallucinogen, if you have qualms about that. Taking it is, of course, entirely your choice.”

Root gave him a coy smile and lifted the mug to her lips.

Harold returned to the machine and started feeding the punch cards into the device. The process was not intensive—there were dozens of cards, each with a piece of the code, and they had to be introduced in order—but the machine would allow them to acquire more information than other current methods could ever dream.

“How does it work?” Root asked, watching his slim fingers deftly set card after card into the feeder.

“Once I run the code, those cables on your body will send your biometric data to the machine,” he explained. “The machine converts those data sets to words using an algorithm I designed. Essentially, this is a method of automatic writing; when you enter the trance state, spirits that wish to communicate will fluctuate your biometric data in a way that will translate into English, and through the machine we’ll be able to reliably speak with paranormal entities and transcribe those conversations.”

“You’re leaving out the best part, Finch,” Shaw said from the doorway, Reese hovering behind. “You left out the part where Root has to let those—whatever they are, things—kick around in her body for a while.”

“Miss Shaw, I already explained the functions of the experiment before you arrived. Miss Groves is aware of the danger.” He fed the last card through. “Besides, that’s why you’ll be her guide; your empathic abilities should absorb most of the negative energy and stabilize her while she’s in the trance; this should minimize any chance of transference or possession by a foreign entity.”

“I still don’t like it.” Shaw had that waspish look on her face. 

“There are no other options. Even if we used a traditional planchette, your parapsychological skills are not compatible with mediumship; you are as unable to effectively open communication as Mr. Reese or I.”

“It’s my time to shine, Shaw,” Root said. “Don’t fret your pretty head.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this over with.” 

John brought over a chair and Shaw set it in front of Root, sitting and moving it close enough that their knees bumped together. She reached out and took both of Root’s hands in her own as though they were two Lindy Hop dancers in open position, alert but relaxed. Reese closed the door of the parlor, turned down the lamps so that the room was filled with soft golden light, and stood next to the window, waiting.

“The program is compiled. We’re ready to begin.”

Shaw let out a heavy breath, and Harold noticed how she squeezed Root’s hands. He reached over to the end table next to the machine and set the metronome going in lazy repetitions. 

“Focus on the sound and movement, Miss Groves,” He instructed. “Allow yourself to breathe in time with the pattern.”

He guided her into the trance slowly, loosening tension one limb at a time, always reminding her to empty out her thoughts, to relax, to breathe; she closed her eyes and did not notice when the metronome’s click slowed into nothingness, and at last she entered deep meditation.

“Good,” He said, his voice calm and sterile. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” She sighed. He reached over and pressed the button, and the program began to run. The machine clicked, processing. 

“I want you to remember everything you experience in this state. If I command you to leave the trance, you will do so when I tap the back of your hand three times. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Describe what you feel at this moment.”

“Warm,” She answered. “Warm and safe.”

“Good. What do you hear?”

“The machine. Whirrs and fans, beeps. I can hear your breathing. John’s stomach gurgling. Sameen’s heart—” Her lips curved up at the edges. “It has such a beautiful sound.” 

“Focus, Miss Groves. What else?”

She breathed in and out. “I hear pattering. Sets of notes that aren’t notes at all, murmuring, buzzing…it sounds like nothing.”

“I’m going to ask you to recall the door to the parlor. When you feel ready, I want you to imagine yourself knocking on that door. Try it now.”

After a few moments of silence, all heads but Root’s turned to the door, where a faint tapping like fingers on a desk sounded. They waited, and heard the sound again. Finch felt as though he was holding a breath, he was so tense in waiting for a response from the house; this kind of invitation was risky, but the house had engaged in physical reactions the previous night, and he wagered it would do so again. Root’s soft tap at the door sounded again, and then a single, mighty boom sounded upstairs. John walked over, letting his hand rest protectively on Harold’s shoulder.

“Good, good,” Finch continued. “The house is listening. Listen to Samaritan again; are the house’s sounds any different?”

Root frowned a little. “Yes, I think so. It’s like a cloud of whispers too low for me to hear.”

“I don’t like this,” Shaw interrupted. 

“Concentrate on that sound, Miss Groves. Imagine that you are the door to the parlor; let Samaritan whisper into the wood. Concentrate. What is the house trying to say? Let it speak through you.”

Root let her head relax against the back of the sofa. Her lips drifted apart, and if she hadn’t just been speaking it would’ve been easy to believe that she had fallen asleep. But her skin was flushed, and though her breathing remaining easy it deepened. After a few tense minutes, words began to stutter across the teletype one letter at a time:

Y A O Q U S Y G U F S

“What does it mean?” John asked.

“Hard to say. Give it a moment, the messages may be garbled at first; the spirits haven’t been able to communicate like this ever before.”

Finch grabbed the pen from his breast pocket and copied the letters, scrambling and unscrambling them, trying with his agile mind to fold them into some kind of sense. Another string of text rolled across the screen.

Y O T M V P M W E I I 

“Is there any way we can help you?” He asked the house. 

The air remained still. Beads of sweat began to gather at Root’s temples and the divots where her neck swept into her collarbone; Shaw took John’s offered handkerchief and brought it to Root’s skin to wick away the moisture.

“She’s burning up.” Shaw said, her jaw tight.

“Maybe the machine can’t translate the signals right, Finch. We need to--” 

“Wait.”

CUMW JOME AAM

CONE KOME DAM

“It’s becoming clearer. Root, can you make it?”

She wheezed, nodding. Shaw was breathing hard too, the same sheen of perspiration mirrored on her own face—she was working hard to balance the connection, her grip tight on Root’s hands. She was most likely taking on much of whatever Root was experiencing, limiting the burden on the other woman as much as she could.

C O M

Each letter’s half-second delay felt like a lifetime.

C O M E H

Finch waited. Root’s breathing was as strangled-sounding as a drowning man’s. 

“Wait for it.” He said. “Almost there.”

C O M E H O M 

“What is it? What does it say?” Shaw grunted.

Harold’s stomach dropped like a stone as the sentence finished. Alarm, fine and thin as wire, pulled along his sternum. 

C O M E H O M E S A M

Dread, as heavy as death, settled on his shoulders.

“I’m shutting it down,” He said weakly. 

Root screamed then. Her torso spasmed as though a puppeteer had connected a string to her chest and yanked it; her face was twisted in open pain, and a violent set of tremors shook through each limb. Shaw flew backwards in her chair, as though a force had blown her away from Root, and the chair careened over and into the coffee table, smashing Shaw through its top. Harold’s hands flew across the machine, pulling power cables and killing the system—John was at Root’s side a second later, tearing the rigging away, ripping the crown of wires from her forehead and the electrodes from her exposed skin, but she still shook, and her eyes were screwed shut, still locked in the trance with Samaritan. John shook her by the shoulders.

“Wake up!” He shouted. He shook her again. He slapped her. Nothing. “Root!”

Harold pushed him aside. A horrible gurgling sounded from her throat, and from her nostril a rivulet of blood trickled over her mouth. He snatched her wrist and tapped the back of her hand three times.

“Miss Groves, come out of the trance!” He cried. “Snap out of it!”

Then Shaw was there, pushing him to the side. She pressed both hands to Root’s cheeks, fingers digging into the flesh, and hauled herself onto the sofa so she was straddling the other woman’s hips. Though Root still jerked, Shaw clamped down with every part of her body, pinning her every way she could.

“Root, listen to me,” She said, her voice like steel. “You have to push Samaritan out. It’s going to hurt you if you don’t. You have to get rid of it. Close the door, do you understand? Stop listening to it. Goddammit, get your ass back here!”” 

She smashed their foreheads together, grimacing. She snarled and her own nose began to gush crimson, a perfect match to Root. 

“Get out of her body, you vile piece of—I’ll kill you. I swear if you don’t get out of her I’ll kill you again somehow—”

“Miss Shaw, be careful! The strain will—”

“Come back, Root. Come back, please.”

Root’s body bucked under the other woman a few more times, and then the storm eased a bit; some of the pain left Root’s features, and the tremors dipped in intensity, no doubt a result of Shaw’s empathic absorption from their increased contact. Harold seized the opportunity to tap the back of Root’s hand again. It worked this time; as quickly as the pain had wracked Root’s body, it fled instantly. Root snapped open her eyes with a deep gasp, as if she could breathe for the first time in minutes. Shaw released her hands from Root’s face, relief flooding across her features, and Harold sat next to them on the couch, placing two fingers to Root’s neck to check her pulse. She looked around, dazed.

“What happened?” She asked.

“You don’t remember?” John said.

“Not really. I—” Her eyes glistened, but she kept her fear restrained. “I don’t remember much at all.”

“Samaritan was trying to hurt you, I think. It doesn’t want you to leave.” Harold said.

“You’re safe now,” John said from behind the sofa, squeezing her shoulder. “Shaw and I aren’t going to let you out of our sight.”

“Sameen,” She cried, tugging her close. 

She squeezed Shaw into a hug, and though the other woman was slow to respond, after a moment her hands drifted around to hold her in return. Finch didn’t want to separate them; they clung to each other like a cliff’s edge, as though they would fall without the other. When they did finally release each other, Root noted the blood dripping from Shaw’s chin. 

“Sweetie, you’re bleeding.”

Shaw smudged her palm over her face, smearing the dripping globules away. She wiped her hand on her shirt.

“I’m fine.”

“We can’t do this again, Finch.” John said. “Direct contact with Samaritan is too much of a risk.”

“Agreed. It seems to be especially interested in Miss Groves, so we cannot place her in any further danger.”

“No kidding.” Shaw said.

“I shall arrange for a car to take you to the village in the morning. Tonight, we shall all stay in pairs in the bedrooms. Miss Shaw, Miss Groves, would either of you like a handkerchief?”

“We’ll clean up in the room. Come on.”

Shaw pulled Root to her feet, both reeling. They stumbled through the door to the hall until their footsteps faded from Finch’s hearing. He turned to John, whose grim expression matched his own, and together they surveyed the wreckage of their first experiment. He looked at the machine’s monitor, thinking of the house’s words, and for the first time, Harold was truly frightened.

  
  
  
Shaw filled the sink with warm water and sank a hand towel into the pool. When she brought it to Root’s mouth and nose, Root was glad her rough demeanor didn’t fully extend to the quality of her care; her face felt broken in three dozen places, and if Sameen had been any less gentle, the piercing ache shooting under her right eyebrow would’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Still, she winced. Shaw paused, checked her over, and wiped away the last of the blood. She dunked the towel one last time, scrubbed it over her own face, and tossed it onto the bathroom vanity.

“How do you feel?” She asked.

“Aren’t you feeling everything I’m feeling?”

“I sense it. The only time I feel it too is when we’re touching.” She clasped Root’s arm, turning it to inspect the new circular wounds there. “The electrodes must’ve torched you when Samaritan let itself in. Let me clean those.”

Shaw grabbed a fresh washcloth, ran cool water over it, and worked soap into the fabric. She applied it gingerly to the burns, silent as she worked. Root wanted to lighten the mood, to flirt or laugh or turn a phrase, but it was hard to even think—the pounding in her head ached like a hot coal embedded sizzling into her brain.

“When you share yourself with me, how do you handle it? The pain?”

Shaw looked up. Even through the haze of her headache, Sameen could still dazzle her with a glance.

“I remember what I’m fighting for.” She said. She rinsed each wound free of soap, then dabbed the injuries over with yet another towel. “I remember who I want to protect.”

When they went back into the bedroom and changed, the entire room felt different. The lights seemed dimmer; the bed, softer. Shaw stretched out on the chaise that was still parked next to the mattress, grabbing a pillow to stuff under her head. Root lay on her side facing her, pulling the covers to her chin.

“Shaw?” She asked after a few quiet minutes.

“Mhm?”

“I heard your voice. When I was with Samaritan, I heard you calling for me.”

Root looked at Shaw, wondering if she should say what she felt. In the end it didn’t seem that they needed words, since after a moment Sameen reached out and offered her open hand across the blanket; as soon as their palms met and their fingers intertwined, Root understood that this was all they needed, to touch and breathe and look at each other. When they touched, Root felt some of the ache in her face melt away—she imagined for Sameen it must be like dividing a drink between two cups, just a little pain for each. It was so kind she could hardly stand it. She brought their connected hands to her lips, kissed Shaw’s thumb right at the curve where it merged into the wrist, and planted another on the back of her knuckles. Shaw squeezed her hand, and together they closed their eyes and slept.

Later in the night, Root awoke to find herself rolled over to the other side of the bed, Sameen pressed close against her back. She couldn’t see a thing. Even starlight did not illuminate the room—it was pitch black. But she felt Shaw, and Root took comfort in her warmth; at some point, she felt a hand slide over her hip and along the plane of her stomach, confident in its movement. A hot sigh tickled her ear, and in her fading drowsiness, she smiled.

“Shaw,” She murmured. 

The first kiss came hot to her jaw, and although it was hesitant at first, she was elated. Then others came, growing in confidence, hungry and ungentle, rough in exactly the way she wanted; kisses to her neck and shoulder, nails scraping pleasantly along her thigh, the bottom of her slip pushed high to her waist, leaving her open and exposed until she pulled it off entirely.

She turned a bit and wished there was starlight, even just a little, so she could see the expression on Shaw’s face; when they locked eyes in the garden earlier Root wanted to see that look again. She wanted to release the longing Sameen fought so hard to keep in check, to see that intense need for her flare right before they kissed, to see how Shaw’s eyes would brighten when she came. Root wanted this more than anything, this hot relaxation settling along her nerves and arousal curling around each edge—every touch was enveloping, inescapable, enjoyable in its complete dominance—just as she imagined it would be—and every act of lust she returned with equal measure. Their passion was an ouroboros, whole and infinite. They consumed each other.

She rolled onto her back, and felt Shaw’s mouth drift from her collarbone down—the other woman’s lips followed the contour of her breast, pausing to give a quick lap of the tongue over her nipple, then continued lower to her stomach. She felt another warm, moist kiss there, felt Shaw’s mouth trail lower, and in the space between the kiss and what happened next, Root could barely stand her own anticipation.

Teeth bit into her flesh, sharp and vicious. Shocked, then in pain, on instinct she pushed Shaw away with a free hand. Then the teeth closed on her forearm, and hands that a moment before pleasured her dug nails into her ribs. She cried out in terror.

A light snapped on. Root blinked. She stared at the empty space of the bed, then at Sameen standing alarmed in the bathroom doorway. 

“Root?” She said, concerned. A glance darted across her quickly, taking in her nakedness and the fresh bitemarks swelling with crimson. “What happened?”

Root’s throat closed in panic. She couldn't breathe. Shaw came to her and stayed close, but even with her calming touch and strength hysteria swelled through every fiber of Root’s being. “Who touched me?” She cried. _“Who touched me?”_


	5. Day/Night 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, friends! I'm sorry it's taken so long to update. I got really stuck writing portions of this, and had to rewrite some material, so it took a lot of time, especially since I take a long time to write anyway. I tried hard to get this out before the holiday so you can all enjoy it, and thank you for sticking with the story all the way through; that makes me so happy.
> 
> Trigger warning for body horror in this section. Things went to kind of a...uh...weird place at points.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story's conclusion. Thanks for reading!

Shaw had never wished for to be able to feel like a normal person, but as Root trembled in front of her, a tiny piece wished that she could comfort her like a normal person would. At first Root’s panic felt like two trash can lids clanging together in a continual vibration, jarring and awful; an ordinary person would offer a hug and say they were going to be fine. If that person was especially kind, that person would help her dress and let her cry, and perhaps would even hold her close.

Shaw was not that person, and kindness wasn’t what Root needed. 

“Tell me what happened,” She said, with as little brusqueness as she could muster. 

Time passed as Root struggled to slow her breathing through gritted teeth. Judging from the hot ripples vibrating through her aura, she wasn’t afraid any longer—she was angry. Furious. 

“Samaritan got to me,” She seethed. “It saw into my thoughts—lured me in a dream until the moment it decided to strike. A few more seconds, and it would’ve killed me.” 

“I don’t think so. If it wanted to kill you, it would’ve bit here,” Shaw said, pressing two fingers to the hickey at Root’s neck right above a carotid artery. “Why would it have to trick you? Why would it…mark you like that and then attack?” 

“Think about what happened last night, sweetie. You were the only thing keeping Samaritan from overloading my brain. Harold said whatever—” She glanced away. “Whatever bond we have, it protects us. If Samaritan wanted to find a way in, it had to give the illusion that it was safe. That it was someone I wanted. It’s playing a game: it wants me to know I belong to it before it kills me.” 

“Us,” Shaw said automatically. “I doubt it wants any of us to get out of here alive.” 

She glanced over the other blemishes, the dark kissing marks over the swell of Root’s breasts, her collarbone, the crease where her hip met her thigh—she willed herself into clinical professionalism. She never allowed her gaze to linger over the other woman’s body, resisted the headlong rush of certainty _(Me. She wanted me.)_ , and forced herself to focus. She gathered Root’s clothes and let her dress, thinking about their options. 

“We need a plan.” 

“Samaritan has to be destroyed, Sameen. We have to tear it apart, grind it down into nothing.” 

“We are not doing anything. The house wants you, and you need to get out of here before night falls again. We all do. If Samaritan has enough energy to manifest itself in a corporeal form, we’re fucked with a capital F. We need to leave, now, while there’s still time.” 

Root went still, eyeing her. 

“Shaw.” 

“What?” 

“Why are you doing that?” 

“Doing what?” 

Root reached forward and gingerly pulled Shaw’s fingers away from a spot behind her left ear. Strange, Shaw thought. She didn’t realize she had been scratching there. As Root prodded the spot, it stung with pain. The skin was scratched raw. 

“Sameen,” Root gasped. “Here, let’s get some soap on that.” She got up and walked to the bathroom. 

In a flash, Shaw remembered. 

Last night, she found herself standing in front of the bathroom mirror. She didn’t quite know how long she’d been standing there scraping her nails across the spot behind her ear; time felt warped and elongated, thick and bitter like a wad of poisoned caramel. At some point she had a vision, or more like a phantom touch, since she felt rather than saw the experience; warmth like a hot bath spread across her face and sank around her neck, sending shivers to the rest of her body. The general sensation narrowed into a more precise shape (in her gut, it felt like Root, as though Root was mirroring the strokes she had given while tending to her injuries the night before) but such a thing should’ve been impossible. 

The warmth lingered, then dropped out to be replaced with a torturous barrage of sensory echoes. Shrill vibrations rang in her ears like a record scratch, and then a flare of brilliant points of light paraded across her vision in an unending Mobius strip of nauseating color and her stomach twisted, her eyes rolling wildly—it had to be some kind of overload, she thought in bits and pieces, too much psychic energy bouncing around from the séance—and when the bombardment ceased, she looked down and saw her pistol clenched tight in her fist. 

When did she take it out of its holster in the bedroom? Why did she have it? She heard Root’s scream, and untrusting of herself she stashed the weapon in a drawer and bolted for the bedroom; as soon as she turned on the light and saw Root, the haze in her brain vanished, and only this morning had she remembered what had happened. 

Samaritan was in her head too. It had to be. 

“Root, forget it. Let’s go,” Shaw called. 

The grandfather clock at the end of the hall sounded off eight o’clock. It would be dark by seven. She was a time bomb: until they escaped, Root would be in danger every moment she was around her. 

Tick-tock. 

  
  
  
  
When he woke up in the morning, Reese knew something was wrong. He placed it as soon as he left Harold sleeping comfortably in his bed and stood at the end of the hallway: normally, even at six, Greer would be tottering around rearranging furniture or sweeping the floors. By seven breakfast smells would be thick in the halls, and John would have heard the clinking of pans and utensils as they were washed in the kitchen’s massive sink. 

Today, at seven-thirty—silence. 

He waited for the others. It had to be another trick, another lure that begged him to check the perimeter or to go downstairs alone and check the locks without someone to watch over him. He looked out the window in his bedroom instead, and when nothing seemed out of place he bathed and shaved and waited in the armchair in the corner of the room, his meditation only broken by the occasional sound of Harold rolling over as he slept. A knock sounded at the door a little after eight; when he opened it, Shaw stood there, Root by her side, both women with dark rings under their eyes. 

“Long night?” He asked. 

“Yeah,” Shaw answered curtly. “That’s one way of putting it.” 

After she told him what happened, John shook Finch awake and informed him of the situation. Finch’s drowsiness disappeared in an instant, and he dressed as quick as a blink.

“We need to check the rest of the house,” He said. “If the phenomena are that strong, the machine might’ve picked up readings last night after I reset it.”

Once they were downstairs Reese enlisted Shaw to help him check the doors and windows. They were all secure, but Greer was nowhere to be found. The kitchen was as cold as it had been the night before, and the trash can was unemptied. The dining room hadn’t been cleared of the plates from supper from the previous evening either.

“Think he took a day off?” Shaw asked, but they both knew it wasn’t really a question.

They returned to the parlor only to find Root and Harold staring at the machine’s monitor with the same grim expression. 

“Harold, what’s wrong?” Shaw asked.

“This is data collected from last night. It lists multiple factors,” He said. His finger traced the lines on one display, a series of points escalating. “And this is a chart made from several sets of the same types of data points collected over time; I’ve been gathering data every half-hour for the past three days, from the moment I arrived.”

He passed her a clipboard so she could see for herself. 

“Okay, there’s an upward trend with all of the sets.” She noted. “What do these correlate to?”

“This line is the house’s paranormal phenomena classified by fields of activity: imprinted energy, like the library’s door, auditory echoes, visual or hallucinogenic effects, and kinesthetic—or physical—effects. It’s clear that these have been present from the moment we stayed in Samaritan for any significant duration, and have been increasing over time. This was expected.”

“Look here, Shaw,” Root pointed to another line on the chart. “This pair of lines is the next set.”

“What are these?”

“A measure of our psychic resonances. The longer we stay together, the psychometrics adapt and begin to flow together. We work on different frequencies—”

“Different abilities.”

“Yes, but once the algorithms break down the different elements into universal standards, you can trace their path together. We’re resonating on the same level now, see? We grew closer until we met right here.”

“The séance last night.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so Root and I are on the same page, and the house is active. That’s a given. Where’s this going, Harold?”

He cleaned his glasses for a moment, thinking.

“From the beginning, I knew that having two parapsychologically-gifted people in the house would jumpstart Samaritan’s activity. I believed the risk was justified because of a logical conclusion I had made based on Eleonor Claypool’s relationship with her companion—that a strong emotional bond would serve as a kind of buffer to Samaritan’s influence. I had no data to work with, but it was the only logical explanation for their continued habitation in the house before Eleonor died. If my theory was correct, even though Samaritan’s activity would increase over time, it would be at a diminished rate, and would keep to the lower levels of paranormal activity until many weeks into the study.”

“You thought we’d get in, get the data you needed to prove your theories and study further, and be out before Samaritan could really affect us.”

“Yes, Mr. Reese, exactly. But look here,” Harold pointed to a third line, this one a series of peaks. “At first the data falls mostly in line with what I anticipated, but during the séance there was a massive uptick in the house’s supernatural energy that was an outlier to any previous data point. It was completely unexpected. Here’s where it gets worse: look at this point here, at three this morning.”

“Right around when Root was attacked; it’s above the resonance line.”

“Correct, Miss Shaw. The house has continued to grow in strength, while your collected energy level remains the same.”

“Samaritan’s adjusted to us, Sameen. It’s like a stress test; we strained its abilities, but now it’s come back stronger.”

“There was no way to anticipate this level of response. The machine’s predictive analytics hypothesize that within the next twenty-four hours, Samaritan’s influence will increase tenfold. You and Miss Groves are most vulnerable—you especially, Miss Shaw, due to the nature of your abilities. It could make you mutilate yourself or become violent to others. But at that point, even Mr. Reese and I would begin experiencing direct psychic phenomena. It could make us do anything it wanted.”

John snatched the clipboard, glared at the graphs, and passed it back. He would never let them come to harm, he thought. He would die before he allowed that.

“We need to evac now.” He said. “Get out before Samaritan gains control of anyone.”

“Agreed. Miss Groves, please assist me with the machine. Miss Shaw, I trust you and Mr. Reese can prepare the truck for transport?”

“On it.”

John led the way. He worked out the timeline in his head: fifteen minutes to load the machine and secure it, another fifteen to pack. If they split into pairs, they could probably cut down each section to ten minutes, and—

The front door’s handle jostled in his hand, but the door was unmoving. He tugged again, then wrapped both of his hands around it and jerked as hard as he could. The door refused to budge. Without pausing he backed away, lifted his foot, and delivered several hard kicks next to the handle. Reese was a big man, and strong; those blows should have easily snapped the door or the door’s frame. Shaw joined him and they both struck fiercely at the same time, yet the result was the same—cold, still wood. They glanced to each other.

“The back,” She said. 

It was the same situation there, and the same with the kitchen’s door. No amount of force could pry open any of the exits. They hurried into the parlor, and John grabbed a stone falcon that had been perched on a shelf as a bookend. He hurled it against one of the large windows, and it…stuck in the air just above the glass for a moment, as though it were the back of a spoon splatting against a fresh dollop of peanut butter. It clung to the surface for just a moment, then dropped to the floor with a crack. 

“What—” Harold began.

Desperate, John pulled the pistol under his jacket free of its holster and unloaded a full magazine into another window. The rest of them winced at the sound until only smoke rose from the barrel of the gun, and when they all moved to examine the glass, the room was so still he was sure his heart could be heard hammering out of time.

The lead of the hollow-points had bloomed like irises marvelously against the surface of the window, but the glass remained. The bullets stuck out as though they were magnetized, unsuccessful of even the barest penetration of the surface; when Root reached out for one, it fell to the floor at her touch. At that point, John’s heart pulled a touch into the pit of his throat—it was the same tug he felt in Korea when he watched Carter—no, he had to push it down. Still, there was no mistaking it. Fear had finally managed to reach him.

“We’re not getting out of here,” He said. “We’re trapped.”

  
  
  
  


Twenty minutes later, Root sat at the dining room table, thinking. The rest of them were still talking, voices tense, barely revealing their panic.

“There has to be something we can do other than sit around and wait to go insane.”

“What about an exorcism?”

“No, I’m afraid that’s the wrong approach. We aren’t dealing with daemons, and I doubt Samaritan even has ghosts; it’s more…uplifted than that. A force of nature.”

“Whatever, Finch. Someone want to tell me how exactly math problems are going to help?”

“I’m calculating how much psychic resistance it would take to overcome whatever static force is sealing the house. When we know that, we can begin our next move. There are many meditation techniques and exercises to amplify parapsychological output; they may take several hours, but if they’re successful, we could use you and Miss Groves’ amplified abilities to open up the house and allow us to escape.”

“Assuming we last that long. So, what, in the meantime we’re going to twiddle our thumbs and draw straws on who gets to pull out the others’ teeth first? Thanks, but no thanks.”

“It has to be done, Shaw.”

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I’m going to sit out on the action for a bit.”

Shaw walked away from the two men and kept walking until she passed Root.

“Where are you going?” Root asked. “You can’t go alone.”

“I need a drink.”

“Good thing I happen to be parched,” Root said with a weak smile. “I’ll go with you.”

They found bottles of Coca-Cola in the refrigerator, most likely left behind by an earlier guest from who knew how long ago, and Shaw tossed the bottlecaps aside before taking a swig. She paced, lines creased between her brows, her fingers clenched around the bottleneck as though she wanted to strangle it.

“It’s a shame Samaritan has to be such a poor host,” Root said. “I was really enjoying this little vacation before the hallucinations set in.”

“There has to be a way out.”

“Harold’s working on the exit strategy.”

“I’m not letting this thing hijack my body, Root. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and watch it torture you to death.”

“You won’t, Sameen. You’re stronger than it is. You need to trust Harold. He’s going to get us out of here.”

“Anything he comes up with is going to rely on you, not me. I’ll be your stabilizer, just like before. You’re the one that’s going to save us.” She tore the label off her bottle, flicking it onto the counter. “If you get us out of this, I’ll buy you a beer. I’ll buy you a whole six-pack.”

“Oh, so we’re doing something after this?” Root asked, smiling. “Like a _date?_ ”

“N-,” Shaw started, but paused. She glanced away. “We can talk about it. Assuming that we live. The ball’s in your court now.”

“No pressure.”

“If Harold thinks you can do it, I do too, but I’ve got another idea if we need it.”

A crash sounded in the parlor down the hall. The women looked at each other, and hurried to see what the trouble was; they rounded the corner of the doorway and found the base end of a marble bust jutting from the smoking innards of the machine, sparks still flickering from its exposed wires. John and Harold were there a second later. Finch gasped, distressed, and pulled the fallen sculpture from the wreckage, dropping it to the floor when it was extracted. He picked up the stack of punch cards from the counter and tucked them into his jacket. 

“At least the core codes are safe. How did this happen?” He asked no one in particular.

It wasn’t mysterious at all, Root thought. She traced the curve of the sculpture’s impact up to the bookshelf nearby with her palm; the arc was all wrong and the distance too far for it to be any normal sort of occurrence. 

“Three guesses,” She said. “But you won’t need three.” 

“Samaritan.” John grunted.

“It’s capable of kinetic movement now. It’s only a matter of time before it starts hurling every heavy object toward us until we’re paste on the nearest wall.”

“Looks like Plan B’s our better option,” Shaw said. “Screw amping up our psychic output. We need to either go big or go home.” She looked over to John. He nodded. 

“Soap, ammonia, charcoal, sugar—” He listed.

“Mothballs—” She added. “A nail and some copper wire.”

“You want to make a bomb.” Root said, understanding at last. 

“And what precisely would be the gain of exploding ourselves to smithereens?” Harold asked. Shaw grinned.

“Ever play a game of Chicken, Harold?”

“You’re hoping Samaritan will unseal itself when it sees the threat.”

“It wants us dead, but that won’t matter if it goes up in flames. Every animal has an instinct to survive, right? Samaritan won’t be different.”

“Do not underestimate anything in this place, Miss Shaw. It could very well be the last mistake you ever make.”

“We’re running out of alternatives,” John interjected. “And you heard Root; it won’t be long now until it uses us for decorating.”

“So, we search the house, find any items that will work, and build a bomb with it. If it doesn’t work, we try it your way.”

“We’ll have to split up.”

“Mr. Reese, that is the most foolish—”

“It’s the only way we’ll cover the house in time, Finch. You know how huge this place is; we need to work as fast as possible. We’ll split up—you take Shaw and search the rooms on this level. We’ll try the basement.”

“It would be better for Miss Groves and Miss Shaw to stay together.”

“No.” Shaw said. She seemed tense. “I’ll go with Finch.” He shook his head.

“You’re more compatible to protect each other.”

“Harold’s right, Sameen. If something happens, it’ll be better for you to be there. You’ll be able to help me more. John and Harold aren’t attuned to the paranormal like we are—the house will be slower to affect them.”

“I—”

“It’s settled. Let’s go.” John and Harold split off and began their search, leaving Shaw tight-jawed and angry behind them. Root saw Shaw’s throat bob as she swallowed; the other woman glanced to her, tense, and jerked her head towards another door.

“Come on,” Shaw said. “Time’s wasting.”

  
  
  
  


A few minutes later, Reese and Finch entered the kitchen. It was stocked well for Greer’s needs: there were plenty of oils and sugar and convenient storage for them to incorporate into their project. As they poured flour into a sack, Finch cleared his throat. 

“I want to warn you,” He said.

“Warn me about what?”

“Miss Shaw may become more erratic as the house closes in on her,” He said. “But Miss Groves could be just as worrisome.”

“Why?”

“She’s an apportationist, Mr. Reese. With the right stimuli, she can transport any object she wishes, and if she loses hold of her sanity to Samaritan, things could get very ugly indeed.”

“Does her ability have something to do with what happened in their room last night?”

“Perhaps. I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility to hypothesize certain stimuli could lead to powerful phenomena manifesting physically, or even moving; telekinesis has always been a close cousin of apportation, and she’s used it in the past. And it’s especially concerning considering our current predicament.”

“Between the two of them, we’d be defenseless.”

“Exactly. If she fell to Samaritan’s influence, Root could remove any method of escape, such as our bomb, and she could bring any weapon forth for her disposal. She may be able to conjure phantasms or hallucinations into the corporeal world. Matter would lose its consistency; during stressful events, her subconscious would scatter molecules at random. She could reshape this house to her will, and I’m afraid that her fondness for Miss Shaw has only made it easier for Samaritan to manipulate her. It may not even truly need Miss Shaw—if it upsets Miss Groves enough, it will use her to kill us all.” Reese tied the bag off and slung it over his shoulder.

“We already knew time wasn’t on our side, Finch.”

“Indeed, Mr. Reese. Indeed.”

  
  
  
  


The phantom sensations were getting worse. As they dug through a set of ancient cardboard boxes stuffed in a corner of the basement, Shaw was hearing things. It was a clicking, like the snapping of an insect’s limb against its carapace or the breaking of dry tinder; it always seemed to be just over her shoulder, and so both the sensation of being watched and the need to constantly check her six were present. And the noise itself was grating—she heard it every few minutes, always whisper-quiet, but present all the same. It was driving her crazy. Root touched her elbow; she was scratching behind her ear again.

“Goddamn it.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” Shaw threw an old clump of cleaning rags across the floor. “It’s fucking dark down here.”

“Do you want my flashlight?”

“No, you keep it. Remind me to fire the electrician that got this place up to code.”

“I will right after we burn it down.”

Behind Shaw’s back, something snapped. She paused, inhaled, and resisted the urge to turn around. The hair on the back of her neck shivered, frisson spreading in a chill across her shoulder blades. 

_I’m losing my mind,_ she thought. 

But she didn’t tell Root that; she could feel the other woman’s worry growing already, and she wouldn’t add to it. She tore through another box. Her fingers brushed a steel can in the detritus. Linseed oil. Perfect. She set it down on the floor and kept digging. 

Samaritan was in her head. It was entrenching itself, wearing her down like she was afraid it would, and she had plans. Plan A, explosives. Plan B, quarantine. Plan C…well. There were worse things that could happen. But she would never be Samaritan’s puppet.

“You find anything?” She asked.

“I don’t think so. Oh!”

Root yelped in surprise. Shaw turned and saw a giant house spider skitter across the flap of a box to the ground. On instinct she snatched a dusty magazine and slapped the arachnid with it, leaving a pulpy mess of legs and ichor smeared across the cement floor. Disgusted, she tossed the magazine away. 

“Everything in this house is repulsive,” Root said. “When it burns to ashes, we should burn the ashes.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think Harold is going to need an assistant after this? You know, to deal with the paperwork?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m twenty-eight and I’ve never held a real job. Girl’s got to start somewhere.”

She found a can of paint thinner and added it to the collection. They searched the boxes for a few more minutes, but found nothing more than mice droppings, with a spider or two meeting their grisly end as soon as they revealed themselves. They moved on to the next room. Shaw pulled some boxes off a storage rack in a cloud of dust, sending Root into a brief fit of coughs.

“What about you? What will you be up to?” Root asked.

“Staying low,” She grunted. “Starting over.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have family you could stay with? Friends?” 

“No,” She said. “There’s no one.”

Root glanced to her, an offer hovering on her lips; Shaw could feel her anticipation. But Root seemed to think better of it, and said nothing. After searching for a few minutes they found another can of linseed oil and some turpentine, and that was enough for them; Shaw gathered the ingredients in her arms, turned to Root, and froze.

There were so many of them, lurking in the corners of the room and dancing on gossamer threads across the beams; groups of spiders, each a little lentil seed of brown-black limbs and hairy spinnerets, hovering in clusters as wispy as cotton candy. They swarmed in clouds over each other, tumbling and reforming as they climbed the walls and ran along the seam where the wall met the floor. Shaw set her items down slowly.

“Shaw?”

“Wait.”

The clicking was back in her ears again, high and piercing. It was them the whole time; choruses of spiders rapping their sharp edges together as they scurried to and fro. A clump of them descended on a silken line about three inches to the right of Root’s ear; segmented limbs flickered towards the cavity, as though if they could only reach they would swarm into the opening. Shaw crept forward.

“Wha—”

“Don’t. Move.” She murmured. 

The spiders clung together like ants building a bridge, linking together to reach closer to Root’s ear, closer to a landing space where they could invade and squirm and burst her eardrum—Shaw’s hand moved lightning fast—her fingers closed around the swarm and squeezed—Root gasped in surprise, and Shaw thought she felt the burst of warm guts mush in her fist—but Root backed away, startled, and when Shaw opened her hand, she didn’t see crushed spiders. Instead, blood slicked bright across her palm. 

“Sameen, what is it? What did you see?”

She closed her fingers back into a fist, then let them unfold again. The blood was still there, red and gleaming, its copper smell swarming her nose. It felt sticky and hot, and when she touched two fingers from her other hand to the shallow pool that formed in the center of her cupped palm, the blood didn’t cling, but she still felt its heat slither to her other fingers. She looked back to the walls and the ceiling. The spiders were gone. Perhaps they had never been there in the first place. 

She turned to Root, who stared at her in worry; wordlessly, Shaw grabbed Root’s waist in her blood-stained hands and yanked her close. All at once she felt as though she had been pushed into the backseat of her body, as if she was a tourist in her own mind.

“It isn’t real,” She said, but through no will of her own her hands crept upwards, squeezing first at Root’s chest and then around her throat, her thumbs clamped hard around the windpipe, and the flesh seemed to strain and give under her fingers.

“Are you sure?” Root said, too far away.

A wave of nausea and a sudden dizziness made Shaw’s head spin. She blinked, and it was all reset—she was in control. Root was where she had been a moment previously, not close to her at all, though she looked much more afraid than before. 

“What’s going on with you?” Root asked. 

Shaw looked at her hands, and they were clean; it wasn’t real. She hadn’t touched her. But without a doubt she had felt Root’s neck crushing under her fingers, and her head began to whirl again. Root took her by the shoulders, cementing her back in reality. She felt like a swimmer about to jump off a cliff without knowing the depth of the bottom.

“I don’t know.”

  
  
  
  


Shaw nearly collapsed at the top of the stairs. 

“Something’s happening to me,” She said, her voice tight. “It’s Samaritan.”

Root supported her (as best she could while also carrying the incendiaries) and marked the sudden chill in the other woman’s skin, the way her eyes flickered unsteadily around the room, and Root was beside herself with worry. After bumping the basement door open with her knee, they walked into the hallway, and Root helped her into the billiard room nearby.

“We can’t stop here. We have to get the supplies to Reese and make the bomb.” Shaw said.

“It’s only for a moment, sweetie. We have to get our bearings. John?” Root called as loud as she could. “Harold?”

She helped Shaw onto a sofa; she was pale, the rings under her exhausted eyes seeming darker than before, and she grimaced in concentration, her palm to her head as though she had an ache deep in her skull. She shivered, so Root took off her jacket and draped it over her like a blanket.

“John? Harold?” She called again. She looked around and saw a fireplace, small but stacked with wood and ready to blaze, and wondered if there were matches nearby.

A thump sounded from the sofa. Shaw had stumbled to her knees and pushed herself to her feet, unsteady. 

“You’re not going anywhere yet, Sameen.” She said, and was at her side in an instant. 

It was like the balance of Shaw’s inner ear was off; she swayed and struggled to collect herself. Eventually she sat again, flopping onto her side as she tried to refocus. 

“Do you feel sick?”

“No,” Shaw said. “It’s all distorted. It’s—I don’t know what I’m seeing. Root, I—”

“Shhh, easy,” Root pulled the jacket over her again and put a palm to her cheek. “Explain it to me.”

“Insects, lights, blood,” Shaw swallowed. “Your blood on my hands. It’s Samaritan, Root; Samaritan’s in my head and I don’t know what it’s going to make me do.”

“It’s running scared. It knows we’re trying to destroy it.”

“I—”

“I’m right here,” Root said. “Let me be your anchor, just like you were for me last night. I’m here, and I’m real. See?” She took Shaw’s hand with her own and squeezed the frozen fingers. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I can’t trust it—the feelings—there are copies and echoes and malformations—”

“Sameen.”

“I’m losing track of reality. I can’t tell what’s real and it’s going to make me sna—”

Root pulled her into a rough hug. There was no other option; she hugged her because she didn’t know what else to do. The embrace was brief and desperate, as if they would never see each other again. But she thought perhaps it would be enough—perhaps if she helped Sameen understand the pangs in her chest, if Shaw could feel the worry and desire and complete adoration she felt for her, then maybe it would settle her. For a moment, she thought it did.

Then Shaw’s hands moved, quicker than her eyes could follow, one hand flat against Root’s chin, the other against the opposite temple, and she felt the strain of Shaw holding back, the torque she fought to keep from breaking her neck. Sharp pain lanced up Root’s vertebrae; it would only take the barest twist of her spine to end it. Shaw stared, horrified, and with great effort she released her.

“I have to go,” Shaw said, and bolted from the sofa. Root caught her wrist, wrenching her around.

“If you leave, you won’t have a chance!” She cried. Shaw was trying to protect her; she was trying to sacrifice herself and Root couldn’t let her do that, she couldn’t lose her—

“If I leave, at least you might have time to find John and Harold,” Shaw said, “If I stay, I could turn on you at any moment.”

“If you even think—”

Shaw grabbed the collar of her jacket and pulled her into the fiercest kiss Root had ever known. It was crushing and short. A goodbye.

“Have to raincheck that beer,” Shaw said, and pushed her down. 

Root fell so hard her skull bounced against the rug, and when she looked up, the last thing she saw was Shaw’s hand as the other woman slammed the door shut. There was a crash on the other side; Shaw had thrown something heavy against the door so she couldn’t follow her. Shaw yelled for John and Harold again, and then her footsteps faded down the hall. 

Root leapt to her feet and threw herself against the wood, pounding and hollering for the others, screaming until her voice was raw and John called her name from the other side. He forced the door ajar, shoving the opulent wooden chair Shaw had toppled aside, and pulled Root into the hall.

“Where is she?!” Root cried. 

“Isn’t she with you?” Harold said.

He cradled a large cardboard box stuffed with chemically-soaked cotton batting and torn linens, different jars and cans of additional flammable liquids nested in the center, clusters of simple paper fuses trailing from their openings like rat tails until they braided together into a thick cord. John snatched up a muslin bag of his own materials from the floor and threw it over his shoulder.

“She ran off. Samaritan’s going to break her over its knee if we don’t get her out fast.”

“This house is enormous, Miss Groves—how could we possibly—”

“If we unseal the house, she can escape too. Maybe if we hurt the house enough, maybe if we—where would we detonate this, John?” Reese looked down both ends of the hallway.

“We’d need a spot with plenty of combustible materials, something that’ll hold a flame long enough to start burning the rafters. Furniture, curtains, books—”

“Books!” Harold said, making a connection. “I bet that’s where Miss Shaw’s gone. There’s only one place in Samaritan that’s been used for a suicide before, and the psychic resonance is bound to draw her there.” He locked eyes with Root.

“The library,” She said, and she broke into a sprint, the two men trailing behind her.

  
  
  
  


Weak acid scorched Shaw’s throat when she finally stopped running and found herself in front of a familiar door. She entered the library and the air wasn’t cold when it buffeted her body, but for the first time deliciously hot and inviting; the mirrored floor of the room seemed to ripple like the surface of a still pond disturbed. She pulled off her jacket, throwing it to the side. The door closed behind her, and although she didn’t hear the click of a lock, she knew with piercing certainty that she was trapped. Shaw glowered.

“Fuck you too, pal.”

Samaritan might wear her sanity down to the quick, but she wouldn’t break, at least not until the others were free. She stood in the center of the room and grunted to the ceiling.

“Get on with it then. Let’s get this over with.”

The floor softened under her boots as though it were fresh mud, soft and malleable and cold. The ripples in it increased, sending out big waves of mirror rolling like a mercury sea until they clashed against the walls. Shaw looked up to see her twenty reflections on the walls stare back, but they weren’t her, not really. She was a sociopath. She didn’t have feelings—or rather, the whispery emotions Root brought out of her rarely broke the surface of her face. These reflections were different; these versions sported broad, grotesque expressions and twisted bodies. 

Most were in varying states of bizarre contortion, spines bent backwards or joints cracked to odd angles, howling and laughing and crying. One version grinned so widely the veins on its neck stood out, and Shaw watched with morbid fascination as the grin began split the corners of its lips, cleaving the cheeks until flashes of hidden teeth emerged for a second before being lost in gouts of black blood. Another’s face sagged as though it were melting candle wax, the expression trapped in a rictus of terror, its dull brown eyes confused and rolling, its body collapsing into the liquid mirror below it. 

A pair of Shaws’ clothes dissolved into mist and they crouched on their hands and knees, one drooling into its cupped hands as the other hooked three fingers of each hand into the first’s swollen vulva, prodding and clawing as though it were trying to dig up a shell buried in the sand, its desirous eyes aflame and its wet lips mouthing Root’s name. It brought its mouth to the other’s sex, rapt with pleasure, until rivulets of blood ran down its chin and its throat bobbed hungrily. The first creature smashed its face into the floor, its head lost as the mirror sea flooded around it. As it sobbed, Shaw heard her own voice clearly through the glass.

_Come with me,_ it said.

“No,” She whispered. 

_Come home, Sam,_ it moaned through the throes of its orgasm. _Come home and be with me._

“No!” Shaw shouted. A savage bolt of pain knifed through her left eye, and she cried out in fury. 

If there were furniture in the library, she would’ve smashed any mirror she could. If she had the full use of her faculties, she wouldn’t have climbed the hazardous spiral staircase at a breakneck speed, and once on the balcony she would have realized that, as the twenty-some identical copies of her screamed and fucked and tore themselves apart inside the world of the mirrors, the library door quaked under Reese’s persistent efforts to break it down. But Shaw couldn’t ground herself through the ache in her head, so instead she stepped on top of the balcony’s thick iron railing and noted with dread how much farther away the floor seemed to be down there.

“Never,” She snarled. The words were thick in her throat. “Never.”

She took a breath, looked down, and her feet inched forward.

  
  
  
  


The moment his foot smashed the door open, Root surged into the library. Shaw was poised on the balcony rail, and Root reached out to her with both hands wide as though she could catch her from that great of a height.

_“Sameen!”_

“Dear god!” Finch said behind him. “Miss Shaw, turn around very, very carefully. Turn carefully and slowly step down to the balcony.”

“I can’t,” Shaw said, “It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late,” Harold said. “Samaritan wants you to feel powerless, but you’re not. You can do anything that you want.”

“John—John, we have to go get her,” Root whispered. “Wait for us, Sameen.” She called. "Stay right there.”

“No!” Shaw shifted forward, the balls of her feet suspended over the edge of the railing. John’s breath caught.

“Okay,” Root planted herself, glancing over to him. “Okay, if you want me to stay, I’ll stay here.” 

He moved slowly to avoid drawing attention. As the two women spoke, he stepped on the first tread; it warped under his weight, the steel impossibly soft, but it held firm enough for him to continue up step by step. 

“Be cautious,” Harold whispered. He set the bomb down on the floor, arranging the fuses carefully. “Root’s shifting its physical properties—it might not hold you.”

Reese didn’t doubt it. He crept up another step. Root spoke softly.

“Sweetie, I know you’re probably really scared right now. I am too. That’s what Samaritan wants—it wants us to be afraid so it can turn us.”

“That’s why I have to do this.”

“No, you don’t. You can do what Harold asked you to do and turn around. You can step off the railing.”

“I can’t watch Samaritan use my hands to kill you, Root. I would rather kill myself—I would rather do that here and now than to risk your life.”

“You won’t save me by dying, Sameen. We have a bond, remember? It’s funny—it already feels unbreakable.” She exhaled. “I knew as soon as I met you. I wondered to myself, ‘Who is this beautiful girl, and how do I convince her to love me?’”

Reese was halfway up the stairs now, but the central support started to bend like a piece of licorice. He lowered himself down to his hands, crawling as fast and quietly as he could.

“Root, I…”

“Don’t leave me behind. Please. I don’t want to be anywhere without you ever again.” 

“I don’t either,” Shaw’s voice cracked. Root’s face was wet with tears. “But I’m not the one calling the shots anymore.”

Shaw’s feet shifted further. She wobbled unsteadily on the edge, barely off the pivot point, and as Root shook the stairs under John’s knees folded to a forty-five-degree angle. He scrambled to pull himself up the last few steps, hands clawing for purchase on the balcony’s slick marble.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it! You have a choice; you still have a choice!”

Shaw paused, thinking. She eased back an inch. Reese rose to his feet.

The fuses sparked in the corner of the room. Finch had lit the bomb, and only a few seconds later it burst into a fireball, gouts of heat leaping up to the bookshelves above and setting them ablaze. Reese watched the air around Shaw shimmer like a mirage; he was moving as it took shape, and when the shimmer struck Shaw in the back like a sledgehammer John dove—

_“No!”_ Root screamed—

—and he hoped his fingers would clamp tight around Shaw’s wrist but they grasped nothing but air, Shaw fell and fell and fell—

And he wouldn’t understand it until later, but a slumbering beast awoke in Root after its long rest; she reached for Shaw and screamed, screamed like she had at Barbara Russell’s house in Bishop when the police found Hanna’s body bent and twisted and missing flesh in soft spaces. She screamed and the mirrors on the walls shattered. The nearby fireplace burst into flames even though there was no wood to feed it. Blood dribbled from her nose and ears and eyes and the room’s vibrated so loudly it felt like a roar, and the spiral staircase ripped away from the wall and went soft as rubber so it could catch Shaw before she hit the floor and deposit her safely in Root’s arms. 

“Miss Groves, quickly! Quickly!” Harold cried—

—and the first boulder crashed through the roof and thudded into the floor with a deafening pound. 

Others followed, blowing holes in the ceiling, and when one careened through the wall that was on fire it ripped a seam clear through to the outside world, and Harold and Root carried Shaw through it to safety. John climbed the shelves until he reached a hole in the roof. He hauled himself through and climbed down a gutter to the ground. Stones rained down relentlessly on the house, shattering windows and beams, and the fire continued to spread as Reese jogged around the corner and across the lawn.

Harold held his side, coughing from smoke inhalation. 

“Are you alright?” Reese asked when he ran up to them. 

Root and Shaw lay sprawled on the grass like gasping fish, both holding tight to each other’s hand, exhausted. Harold put a hand on his shoulder.

“I think we will be, Mr. Reese. I think we will be.”

As the sun faded, they watched Samaritan burn until only a skeleton of charred wood and stone remained.

  
  
  
  


Zoe Morgan was surprisingly nonchalant about the loss of her investment; it became grazing land for a local rancher, though few animals would go near the burned-out husk at the property’s center. She took a vacation to Provence with Reese afterwards, and in bed one night she held him as he finally told her about Carter and the landmine; she was happy that his new friends were able to help him open up again, to reconnect to comrades-in-arms. 

Finch analyzed his readouts for many months after the incident. He woke in a cold sweat some nights, reaching for Grace, sure now more than ever that he needed to find ways to protect others from the horrors they had witnessed. He built a new computer, a new machine to carry on his work, and thought about the future; people were so fragile, their emotions overwhelming their minds. Perhaps only a thinking machine would truly be capable of protecting humanity.

And although they had met while neither of them had a home, Root and Shaw found one in each other. They were inseparable. Unbreakable. 

Samaritan, a broken ruin no longer a house, but still not sane, closed its wounded eyes. It would sleep again, perhaps never to awaken. Despite the grandeur of its empty halls and the serenity of its lush grounds, it seemed neither of the earth nor ether; the house lay silent through eighty years, and whatever walked there, walked alone.


End file.
